A Florida deputy caught on video punching a teen and slamming his head into the pavement has been fired, department officials announced.
An internal affairs review recommended that the Broward County deputy, Christopher Krickovich, be exonerated in the April 18 incident in Tamarac — but Sheriff Gregory Tony went against that decision and canned Krickovich.
“When my deputies do the right thing, I will always support them and have their back,” Tony said in a statement Wednesday. “But I will not stand idly by while anyone violates his or her sworn duty to protect.”
Krickovich, who had been suspended without pay after footage of the incident went viral, was responding to a large brawl involving roughly 200 students outside a McDonald’s near JP Taravella High School. He wrote in an arrest affidavit that some of the teens started “yelling, threatening us and surrounding us” outside the school.
“I had to act quickly fearing I would get struck or having a student potentially grab weapons off of my belt vest,” the deputy wrote.
The teen, identified in reports as 15-year-old Delucca Rolle, was charged with assaulting a police officer and obstruction without violence in the incident, but those charges were later dropped.
Authorities later charged Krickovich and another deputy, Sgt. Greg Lacerra — who pepper-sprayed the teen — with misdemeanor battery. Both have pleaded not guilty in their ongoing criminal cases, ABC News reported.
A third deputy, Ralph Mackey, was also charged with falsifying records to allegedly cover up the rough arrest but was found not guilty in September, according to ABC News.
Video of the April incident shows that witnesses at the scene were screaming as the melee unfolded.
“What are you doing?!” one woman yelled. “He’s bleeding!”
One student told WTVJ he saw Rolle clearly get “punched in the face by police” after being handcuffed, while another witness told WPLG that the deputies “went way too far” during the incident.
With Post wires