HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — The survivors of a motorcycle crash have filed a lawsuit against the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.
Charles Knight and his fiancée, Alannah Torres, are suing HCSO for negligence after a crash nearly a year ago left them with more than $1 million in medical debt.
I-Team Reporter Kylie McGivern is following through on concerns about confusion surrounding "cruise lights" on Hillsborough County patrol units she first revealed last summer.
Every driver knows that when you see red and blue flashing lights on a patrol car, you slow down, pull over, or get out of the way.
But in Hillsborough County, drivers will also see deputies with their lights on, but not flashing. They're called "cruise lights," and the HCSO implemented their use on all patrol vehicles.
The sheriff's office says to just keep driving.
Unlike flashing emergency lights, the purpose of cruise lights is simply to increase awareness that law enforcement is there and to deter crime.
But not everyone received that message.
The I-Team first met with Charles Knight last year, when he was at Tampa General, five weeks into his recovery.
As the one-year anniversary of the crash approaches, Knight and his fiancée, Alannah Torres, are faced with daily reminders of the incident, including physical scars and severe stress. Neither was able to work for almost an entire year.
"We're really lucky to be here," Torres said.
"I still wake up with night terrors from the accident," Torres said.
"If I didn't move the way I did, I'm sure we — we both wouldn't have made it.”
“I haven't seen state troopers use them, I haven't seen Tampa PD use them, Clearwater, Pinellas County, Pasco, it's only Hillsborough County that I've seen that, that uses these. And they create confusion. And as you can see, it can be a danger to the public," Charles Knight told the I-Team.
The I-Team met Knight inside Tampa General Hospital more than a month after a crash with a Hillsborough County deputy, where he was recovering from multiple surgeries to try to save his left leg.
“Yesterday was five weeks, seven surgeries," Knight said. “The surgeons here did an amazing job trying to save my leg, and I'm hoping I get to keep it, but there's a lot of metal in this leg.”
Knight doesn't know the road ahead of him, but when he looks back to April 28, he can see how fractions of a second altered the course of his life.
“Me and my girlfriend at the time, fiancée now, were at CVS picking up some things, and we were heading back home," Knight said.
They were heading home on his Harley.
"There was a car in the right lane, maybe just a few car lengths ahead of me, and we were traveling, and when I noticed Hillsborough County Sheriff's deputy up ahead staging a left-hand turn. As we approach to where the deputy was staging that turn, I noticed this car started to slow down for whatever reason. But I had seen that he had, you know, those red and blue lights on," Knight said.
The deputy had his cruise lights on.
"Since I've been down here, I haven't seen any other agency use them," Knight said. “The car that was to my right had started slowing down, but I knew it was safe to travel through because lights weren't flashing.”
Knight is familiar with cruise lights from his background working in law enforcement in Colorado.
“As he was making that left-hand turn, he completely blocked my lane," Knight said of the deputy. "I tried to get around him, but there just wasn't enough time. I didn't have enough space, and he still ended up hitting me.”
“When I came to, I had already had a tourniquet around my leg, and several more deputies had arrived on scene, and I remember hearing her screaming. My leg’s in pieces. Then we just kept shouting back and forth to each other that we love each other. And that's really all we could do," Knight said. "If I didn't move the way I did, I'm sure we — we both wouldn't have made it.”
The Florida Highway Patrol investigated. In the crash report, the trooper noted HCSO's red and blue cruise lights were activated. The report stated that a driver to Knight's right "came to a stop" and "yielded to the patrol vehicle as he believed he was supposed to do."
The report goes on to say that the different actions taken by Knight on his motorcycle and the other driver in response to the use of cruise lights "highlight the ambiguous nature of their use and the confusion created by them among the motoring public."
“I fully suspect that if the other driver had not slowed down, that this accident would not have occurred," Web Brennan, Knight's attorney, told the I-Team.
Sovereign immunity law will cap the potential payout at $300,000.
"Our medical debt alone far exceeds that," Knight told the I-Team after the lawsuit was filed.
The concept of sovereign immunity is designed to protect taxpayers from large payouts in lawsuits against governmental agencies.
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"We had 17 surgeries between the two of us," Knight said.
Doctors are trying to save Knight's leg from having to be amputated.
Knight previously worked as a FedEx driver but has struggled to find manageable work since the crash.
"My last job before this, I was doing FedEx deliveries... finding something I could do has been difficult, so I've been relying on things such as Uber and DoorDash to, to try and get by because... then there's no money coming out of anywhere else," Knight said.
HCSO told the I-Team it does not comment on pending or active litigation, but that its policies on cruise lights and their use remain the same since our original story ran last summer.
"Just keep driving"
To know how to respond to cruise lights in Hillsborough County, you would have to follow their social media accounts. This is where they shared the information. The I-Team wanted more information for this story to share with the public, but the sheriff's office would not do an interview or answer questions and instead pointed the I-Team back to their social media.
In an email last year, HCSO Public Relations Coordinator Carolina Montelongo told the I-Team, "Given that we have shared multiple videos explaining this process, including the one you referenced, which clearly outlines the purpose of cruise lights and how drivers should respond, we will allow those videos to speak for themselves."
HCSO posted this video two days after Knight's crash.
In the video, the deputy says, "The steady red and blue lights simply mean there’s a deputy in the area patrolling and being visible to the community. If you see these, you don’t need to stop. Just keep driving safely."
The deputy then explains that if the red and blue lights are flashing, the deputy is heading to an emergency or pulling you over.
The 40-second video ends with the deputy saying, "Now that you know this, share this with a friend so they can know what to do when they see the lights.”
"You are conditioned to respond"
Dr. David Thomas, a retired police officer and forensic studies professor at Florida Gulf Coast University, told the I-Team this big of a change demands more communication with the public.
“You are conditioned to react and respond to those lights.” Thomas said. “I know you got well over a million or so people in Hillsborough County. How many of those million people are tied to Hillsborough County's social media? How many of those people who live in different jurisdictions in the cities they are tuned in to Hillsborough County? The SO? So it's short-sighted, and you know, if we're making that deviation, then we owe it to the public, and all the surrounding jurisdictions, to understand that we're making this distinction and why we're doing it.”
HCSO would not discuss cruise lights, so the I-Team submitted a public records request.
The I-Team obtained documents showing the results of a 6-month trial period the sheriff's office conducted, starting in December 2019.
There were some drops in crime noted during the trial period. But a key finding stated, "This study was not able to conclusively support the argument that cruise lights deter crime. The study demonstrated a possible deterrent effect."
Knight said his biggest concern is for the safety of others on the road.
"Every time I pass by one of those cops with their cruise lights on, I worry," Knight said. "It could have very easily killed the two of us, and I don't want anyone else to go through what we went through."
“The reward... far outweighs some folks feeling like they don't quite know what to do for a moment."
To gain more perspective, I-Team traveled further south, to Bradenton, last year, where the police department has been using cruise lights for more than a year.
“I’ll be honest, when it started, we got some pushback, not only from the cops, but also from the public," Bradenton Police Chief Melanie Bevan said. "However, in the months that have passed, that has shifted from, 'What the heck are you guys doing?' To, 'Wow, I like that. It really catches our attention. We feel like you have more police officers out there.'"
When asked about the pushback, Bevan said the concerns centered around change.
"It's something that people aren't used to. I think some people see a cruiser to their side or coming up behind it, and they think we need to pull over," Bevan said.
She reiterated that cruise lights are to raise awareness, and drivers do not need to pull over.
“The reward, what I think we're benefiting from a program like this, far outweighs some folks feeling like they don't quite know what to do for a moment. It does require a great deal of education. We need to let everybody know what it's all about. But at the end of the day, I think it's worth it," Bevan said. “It just gives a greater degree of visibility to our folks out there on the street, and lets people know that we're there, we're prepared, and here we are.”
This story began with a tip. If you have something you'd like the I-Team to investigate, contact Kylie:
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