Family Says Madison Deputies Interrupted Party, Used Tasers

Madison Family Says Deputies Had Wrong House

POSTED: 11:02 pm CDT July 4, 2011
UPDATED: 4:32 pm CDT July 6, 2011
Video at the Link:

MADISON COUNTY, Miss. -- A Madison family wants answers after they claim deputies interrupted their party Saturday.

They said Madison County sheriff's deputies arrested and used a Taser on several people while looking for an assailant at the wrong house.

Moses Hart said the Madison County Sheriff's Department was out of line Saturday night.

"For some reason, officers came up (to the house and) before they could even tell me what was going on, they had one of the guys in handcuffs," Hart said.

Hart said he was having a party on his lawn with about 50 people when deputies showed up by the carload.

Madison County Sheriff Toby Trowbridge said two units responded to an assault call on Daughtry Street. When they got there, there was a large crowd of people at one of the houses.

"As my deputies got out and approached the crowd, they tried to determine if the woman (who reported being assaulted) was there. The crowd was large, loud and kind of swarming around (the deputies)," Trowbridge said.

But Hart said no one was assaulted at his house. Hart said people were drinking and dancing and playing music but no one was arguing.

"DJ asked (an officer), 'Was the music loud?' He said, 'No.' He just said that someone had got injured, shot somewhere," Hart said.

Hart said deputies then used a Taser on at least three people.

"I said, 'Excuse me, officer, what's wrong?' (And he said,) 'Shut ...up. Get down!' I said, 'Wait a minute, I didn't do nothing, you can't tell me to get down,'" said Rolanda Daughtery.

Margo Alford said she also had a Taser used on her.

"My mother, she was still trying to talk to them, but I guess they was getting mad and asking them questions, so when I was pulling her back from trying to talk to them, they just (used a Taser on) me," she said.

"The deputies asked them to step back, but the crowd kept growing and getting louder. The deputies tried to disperse the crowd and gave orders which were not followed," Trowbridge said. "A confrontation developed and one of the deputies went to arrest one of the men. That's when another man put his hands on the deputy as he was arresting another man. This seemed to incite the crowd and they came forward. The deputies fired Tasers at three of them and ended up arresting seven people."

Alford and her mother said they were arrested for disorderly conduct. The family said three people were still behind bars on Monday.

"We went to jail for no reason. I still got friends in jail for no reason and I don't think that's right," Alford said.

Trowbridge said the use of Tasers by the officers seemed necessary.

"From what I've read of the reports, the deputies were justified in their use of force to make the arrests and restore calm to the situation," Trowbridge said. "I'm still looking into it, but thank goodness I had an extra crew assigned to duty that night. This was a large crowd that grew unruly and action had to be taken to get control of the scene there."

Trowbridge said the person who originally called to report an assault had left the scene and was later located at a house a few blocks away. He told deputies that he had been struck in the head by a man with a pistol at a block party on Daughtry Street. He was taken to a local hospital.

The sheriff said the deputies went to the home on Daughtry Street to find the man's attacker.

http://www.wapt.com/news/28444843/detail.html