Weeks after police said former Tampa Bay Buccaneers star Warren Sapp disrupted a Tampa City Council meeting, the Tampa Police Department released body-worn camera footage depicting the minutes after the confrontation.
Sapp, a Pro Football Hall of Fame defensive tackle, said an officer threatened arrest after he entered a room adjoining the council’s chambers on Sept. 17. He was there, he said, to collect paperwork.
Sapp filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city of Tampa days later, claiming officials violated his First Amendment rights when they had him removed from City Hall.
“Rather than permit (Sapp) to conduct his business in a public government building, City Officials escalated his presence into a governmental confrontation,” the lawsuit said. Sapp’s presence, it said, “prompted an extraordinary response from City Officials.”
The body-worn camera footage shows the minutes after Sapp and another unnamed man leave the room beside the council’s chambers. In it, he speaks with police officers gathered in a hallway area, describing the confrontation.
“One of the City Council members came in and I said, ‘What’s your name, good sir?’ And of course he don’t want to answer,” Sapp tells an officer. Sapp said an official told him, “We can hear you in our City Council meeting, keep it down!”
Sapp said he apologized and sat down.
A separate video capturing a slice of the interaction, posted to Facebook last month, shows Sappand the other person seated before two members of the Police Department. City Council chairperson Alan Clendenin and council member Luis Viera periodically enter the frame.
“Get out,” Clendenin said, according to the social media video. Sapp showed Clendenin his middle finger.
“I’m ordering you to leave,” Clendenin continued, “and if you don’t leave, I’m gonna ask the police to escort you out.”
“I’m refusing your request,” Sapp replied. Repeatedly, he asked, “What crime have I committed?”
In the police body camera footage, Sapp told an officer that when asked to leave the room, he replied, “I’m politely declining your ask.” When threatened with arrest, he said, “Oh, I’ve got to go now.”
As he left the room, Sapp said an officer without a body-worn camera “walks up on me and touched his guts with me.” The officer reportedly asked Sapp, “You think (you’re) tough?”
According to a Police Department report of the incident, officer Ferdinand Barbosa said he issued a trespass warning for the rest of the day and said the two men could be arrested if they refused to leave.
“During my interaction with Mr. Sapp,” Barbosa wrote, “he became verbally confrontational and argumentative with me.”
Inside the council’s chambers, confusion spread among attendees who strained to make out the commotion outside the glass doors.
Clendenin had briefly paused the meeting before ruling Sapp and the other man out of order. He asked a legislative aide to lock the doors leading into the chambers and asked attendees to remain in their seats.
Sapp’s lawsuit said city officials’ conduct was a civil rights violation.
“The First Amendment does not permit a municipality to transform disagreement, irritation, criticism, anticipated expression, or an unwanted citizen’s presence in a public governmental forum into grounds for official retaliation,” it said. “By invoking municipal authority to exclude (Sapp) from City Hall and interfere with his ability to access and petition his local government, the City crossed a constitutional line.”
City officials can establish reasonable rules governing the orderly operation of meetings, the lawsuit said.
“They may not, however, employ those rules as a pretext for suppressing, punishing, or deterring constitutionally protected activity,” it said.
Represented by attorney Anthony Sabatini, a Lake County Commissioner and former state representative, Sapp said he suffered humiliation, embarrassment, reputational harm, emotional distress, inconvenience and a loss of constitutional rights. He is seeking nominal damages.