Florida Sheriff Sued for Threatening Arrests at Hurricane Shelters

A Florida sheriff's department is being sued because it attempted to run criminal
background checks on people entering hurricane shelters. Photo: Shutterstock

“If you go to a shelter for #irma and you have a warrant, we’ll gladly escort you to the safe and secure shelter called the Polk County Jail,” tweeted Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, just days before Hurricane Irma made landfall in Florida.

The ostensible reason for these ID and warrant checks was to ensure that sex offenders and other predators would not be able to prey on innocent people at hurricane shelters. However, immigrant rights group Nexus Services filed a lawsuit against Sheriff Judd and the Polk County Sheriff’s Department, saying that Florida driver’s licenses already mark people as sex offenders and that the policy of doing warrant checks before allowing people into the shelters is discriminatory and violates Fourth Amendment rights against unlawful search and seizure.

The suit claims that when Andres Borreno of Virginia tried to enter a shelter on September 10, he was told that he would have to submit to a criminal background check before he was able to enter. 

“Sheriff Judd’s true motives are clear, and have been expressed by him explicitly: The purpose of these pedestrian ‘checkpoints’ is to conduct a fishing expedition to find any possible basis, no matter how tenuous, for issuing citations to or arresting human beings seeking refuge from a Class [sic] 5 hurricane,” the lawsuit says. “The problem is that these searches and seizure are not based on any suspicion of criminal conduct. Suspicion is not raised by trying to gain entry into an emergency shelter to save one’s life and the lives of family members.”

For his part, Sheriff Judd said, “They filed that lawsuit for free press and it’s obviously frivolous. I have a nationwide profile and they see it as an opportunity for nationwide press.” He also said Borreno wasn’t treated any differently than other people seeking shelter.

“We check everyone who comes into a shelter to ensure they aren’t a sexual predator or child sexual offender,” Judd said. “We are absolutely not going to let a sexual predator or a child sexual offender sleep next to a child in a shelter.”

Borreno’s attorney, Mario Williams, said the sheriff’s statements about sex offenders were an attempt to deflect attention from the constitutional issues raised by his actions.

Williams also said that the criminal background checks not only violated people’s rights, they compromised the safety of people seeking shelter. “This is about ensuring that as many people as possible are as safe as possible from the largest natural disaster we’ve seen in our time,” he said. 

“We’re just trying to get [Judd] to stop doing it,” Williams said. “And then, honestly, even after all this is all over, I’m still going forward. I want this kind of practice declared unlawful.”

What do you think? Was Sheriff Judd right to do criminal background checks on people entering shelters, or do you think that constitutes a violation of constitutional rights and a threat to people’s safety? Please share your thoughts in the comments.