Police chief rebuts article

Elijah Harris was told by armed police officers to get on the floor, but so was everybody else in the restaurant, the police chief said.

There was Harris and a woman. They were the only customers inside. One Little Caesars employee was working the register Wednesday night.

They were the only people within the field of vision. A manager was toward the back, away from the robbery, witnesses said.

Harris, who is black, told Chief George Turner over the telephone the next day he was "singled out in a crowd of white people."

He was angry he was the only one berated by police and told to get on the floor, Turner said.

The police chief was caught off guard. One moment he is talking on the phone to a reporter with the St. Petersburg Times and the next moment he is being accosted by someone accusing his police officers of racial profiling. The pair were taking turns talking to the chief on the same phone, Turner said.

"I was totally in the dark," he said.

Turner invited Harris to his office to talk to him. Harris told him he had church. Then he asked Harris to come in Friday. Harris said he had to be in Ocala all day.

The chief said he told Harris he would be in Brooksville for the Veterans Day Parade and asked to meet him there. Again, Harris refused.

"It's like he didn't want to talk to me," Turner said. "He only wanted to talk to the paper."

On Friday, the Times printed a story on the front page of its Metro section titled "Officers target black customer."

Turner said he hated the article.

"It was irresponsible reporting," he said. "The stuff in that article was the farthest thing from the actual truth."

As for the crime itself, a man has been arrested and another is sought.

John Patrick Maher, 28, and Joel Gavin Ford, 25, both of Brooksville, are charged with armed robbery and conspiracy to commit armed robbery. Ford, whose last known address is 509 Oak Hill Court, is still at large.

Police officers said they entered the business and ordered everyone to get down, not just one person. Their version of the events is supported by two employees - Otis Hamilton and Cassie LeBlanc.

Harris, a correctional officer at a federal prison in Coleman, was standing by the front door and immediately went to the floor. A female customer raised her hands, bent down and was going to the floor, according to transcripts of a police interview with Hamilton.

Harris told the Times reporter a different story. He said he was singled out because he was black.

"That did not happen," said employee Cassie LeBlanc, 19, who called 911 on her cell phone that night. "They were screaming at everybody to get down. They didn't single out anybody."

She made the call after she grabbed a cell phone from her manager and ran out the back door, she said. She was standing outside during the call.

As police cars swarmed the restaurant, LeBlanc ran from the back of the building to the front and told the responding officers the perpetrators might still be inside.

"They're still in there," she screamed on the 911 recording. "I don't know if they left."

LeBlanc watched the police enter through the front door, she said.

A minute or two earlier, Harris entered the restaurant. It was less than a minute after the robbery occurred. A lady also came in a second or two earlier, LeBlanc said.

Moments later, the police officers entered and ordered everyone inside to get on the floor, said Hamilton, who was working the cash register.

"They pointed at her first and told her to get down," he recalled. "Then they turned to him, pointed at him and told him to get down."

Harris immediately dropped to the floor, tried to tell the police he was a law enforcement officer and reached for his wallet, Hamilton said.

That's when they yelled, "Don't move," he said.

Hamilton spoke up after that.

"No, no, that's not him," he told police officers. "They went that way."

LeBlanc told them the same thing as she stood outside, she said.

They left the restaurant and bolted toward the vicinity where the robbers were last seen, police said.

The time from when police entered and exited was "maybe five seconds tops," Hamilton said. LeBlanc agreed.

After the melee was over, Hamilton said Harris approached him and told him he was displeased with the way the officers handled the response.

"He said he couldn't believe how he was singled out," Hamilton said, recalling his conversation with Harris. "He said he was a police officer and he showed me his badge."

Harris told the Times he was a corrections officer. A switchboard operator at the federal prison in Coleman would not confirm his employment.

It was reported in the Times story Hamilton agreed with Harris. It stated Hamilton thought Harris was unfairly targeted by the police.

"I never said that," Hamilton said of the article. "If they should be writing about anything, they should be writing about the robbery."

Efforts to contact Harris at work and at home were unsuccessful. He told the Times he was a pastor at Second Chance Restoration Ministries in Brooksville, but no number was listed.

A message at his residence was not returned.

Video surveillance of the robbery is expected to be obtained today, but a Little Caesars employee in Tampa said the footage does not show the front of the restaurant, so no footage of the police confronting Harris could be seen.