CLINCH COUNTY, Ga. (WALB) - A federal judge has rejected Clinch County Sheriff Stephen Tinsley’s request to have an $11 million excessive force lawsuit against him dismissed on the basis of qualified immunity. This lawsuit comes after he arrested and allegedly assaulted 37-year-old Black veteran Darius Rice in Henry County in April 2022.

Viral cell phone footage shows the moment Sheriff Tinsley put Rice in handcuffs after Tinsley’s wife accused him of groping her inside a Henry County convenience store.

According to our previous reporting, Rice said he made “unintentional and incidental contact with Clinch County Deputy April Tinsley after she backed away from the coffee counter inside the store.”

The lawsuit alleged, “Sheriff Tinsley’s actions and use of force….were also malicious and/or involved reckless, callous, and deliberate indifference to Rice’s federally-protected rights.”

WALB obtained a copy of the lawsuit which accuses Tinsley of using an unreasonable amount of force and violating Rice’s Fourth Amendment rights.

Below is the full lawsuit:

In rejecting Tinsley’s attempt to dismiss the $11 million lawsuit, U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee stated, “At the motion to dismiss stage, the court finds that Rice has sufficiently alleged that Sheriff Tinsley acted with actual malice in body slamming him to the ground after he was already handcuffed.”

However, Sheriff Tinsley’s efforts to get the false arrest claim against him dismissed was granted because the court determined that Sheriff Tinsley had probable cause to arrest Rice.

The national civil rights attorneys representing Rice, Harry Daniels, Bakari Sellers, and Latrice Latin, say this case echoes the Emmett Till lynching.

They say, “Darius Rice is lucky to be alive. He could have been paralyzed or worse all because he accidentally bumped into a white woman at a gas station.”

According to the release, this incident is not the first time April Tinsley’s false claims have landed her in hot water. In fact, the lawsuit details at least two incidents when she was accused of lying as an agent with the Georgia Drugs and Narcotics Agency (GDNA).

The release reads, “In 2018, Tinsley was accused of falsifying official mileage sheets. In a 2016 memo to then-GDNA Director Rick Allen regarding a drug seizure from R&M Cash Drugs, Deputy Director Dennis Troughton reported that he’d caught ‘Special Agent April Warren in a lie’ saying that he saying that he was ‘greatly concerned that a GDNA agent would lie to you [Warren] regarding another agent and myself’.”

Previous Coverage:

Clinch County Sheriff, wife face civil lawsuit after convenience store incident

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