William McNeil Jr., the 22-year-old Black man whose assault at the hands of officers with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office (JSO) has gone viral on social media, has hired nationally renowned civil rights attorneys Harry Daniels and Ben Crump to help him fight for justice following a February 19 incident when JSO officers violently smashed his window and punched him in the face multiple times after he asked to speak to a supervisor.
In the video, McNeil asks the officers while they pulled him over and they answer saying it was because he didn’t have his headlights on. When McNeil responded that it was daylight and it wasn’t raining, the officer said it didn’t matter.
This is only the latest in a long line of excessive force incidents involving the JSO. In September 2023, the department was the focus of a national outcry after a video of JSO officers violently beating 24-year-old Le’Keian Woods while he was unarmed went viral. In 2019, JSO officers faced a federal lawsuit for killing 22-year-old Jamee Johnson after pulling him over for an alleged seat belt violation.
“I am absolutely disgusted by the actions of these officers but, unfortunately, I’m not surprised,” said Daniels. “The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office has a long history of this kind of needless violence and brutality.”
“It should be obvious to anyone watching this video that William McNeil wasn’t a threat to anyone,” says Crump. “He was calmly exercising his constitutional rights and they beat him for it.”
Click HERE to view video of the incident.
