An incident at a Sports Authority on Fowler Avenue in 2006 has led to a Tampa personal injury lawsuit against the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s office. According to the lawsuit and a story on TampaBay.com, 16-year-old Dorian Niebch had his left arm broken in a scuffle with Hillsborough County Sheriff’s deputies after there was a report the teenager approached a young girl in the store.
Niebch has autism, a fact the deputies didn’t know when they responded to the call. The teenager was approached by deputies in the store and then took off running. That is when he was taken down by the deputies. Neibch’s mother ran over after hearing the commotion and yelled to the officer’s that her son was autistic but by the time the situation had calmed the damage to the teen’s arm had already been done. The teen was never charged in the incident but his mother did face battery charges for assaulting the deputies with her purse.