Cops were called to this McDonald’s 85 times in 8 months. Why did teen’s arrest go wrong?

It should have come as no surprise for Broward deputies to find hundreds of teens gathered at a McDonald’s restaurant near J.P. Taravella Senior High School.

For years, Taravella students have frequented the fast-food parking lot at Tamarac Square West Shopping Plaza just about every weekday afternoon after classes let out. There isn’t enough room on campus for all 3,100 students to wait there for their parents to pick them up, students say, so many instead gather at the nearby McDonald’s. It’s also a spot along North Pine Island Road where students can grab the Route 88 bus to head north or south.

Cops know it well. Records obtained by the Miami Herald from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office show police have been called there 85 times since last August. Those calls range from suspicious people or packages to trespassing to disturbances and vandalism.

the situation quickly went south

Whether the deputies came in spoiling for trouble and over-reacted or the kids provoked them, a number of students who talked to the Herald and the BSO agree there was a different “vibe” in the air on April 18.

“It was way scarier. You could tell something was about to happen,” said Taravella junior Aaliya Pierre, 16. “Normally everyone is just chillin’ and waiting for our parents to get us.”

Aaliya’s friend Leona Foster, a 16-year-old junior, said more students than normal had gathered because “somebody was going to get jumped.”

A day earlier, a fight had broken out in the McDonald’s parking lot. A car was dented. Earlier on the day Delucca was arrested, at least two fights broke out at the school, according to students. So that afternoon at McDonald’s there were more students than usual in anticipation of a fight. And law enforcement had prepped as well, sending a Crime Suppression Team dressed in military-like gear in preparation of any type of melee.

The combination of hyped-up students and Broward deputies ready to intervene proved a volatile mix.

Almost a month later, Broward County School Board member Dr. Rosalind Osgood still believes race played into Delucca’s arrest. She questioned the need to send a tactical unit to a parking lot where kids were expected to get into a fight. Osgood said community leaders also have been working hard to teach kids, especially black kids, to deal respectfully with law enforcement and unnecessarily violent take-downs by officers undermine that message.

“When these things happen, you lose ground,” said Osgood. “Nikolas Cruz [who is white] got an escort to jail. He murdered 17 people there [at nearby Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School].”

BSO spokeswoman Gina Carter said her agency deployed a tactical squad called the Crime Suppression Unit because of its expertise in handling volatile situations after the agency was alerted to a crowd moving toward McDonald’s by Coral Springs police. She defended the agency’s training protocols, saying that for the past three years all deputies have received 10 hours of training on how to deal with large crowds and civil disorders.

“When the officers arrived they saw close to 200 juveniles had already gathered,” she said.

Many in the community remain convinced that the deputies’ actions simply inflamed the situation. It wasn’t just that they made arrests. It was how the did it. Students, family members, friends of Delucca and civil rights groups say there was no need for Deputy Christopher Krickovich to slam Delucca’s head on the pavement and punch the student after the officer had him under control on the ground.

“I think they [the deputies] were scared too. But all he had to do was tell him [Delucca] to back up. He didn’t have to put out the mace,” said Aaliya, who witnessed the incident and was stung by the mace.

Jeff Bell, president of BSO’s largest union said the officers responded by the book to a tense situation. Delucca, confronting the officers, was a potential threat, he said. “They did exactly what we’re now being told to do. So I have to support the deputies because they’re following their training.”

Carter, the BSO spokeswoman, said it’s not unusual for large, sometimes unruly crowds, to gather at the plaza and there have been many complaints.

“Vendors in the plaza have been dealing with groups of juveniles meeting there. BSO is often called to deal with incidents of trespassing, fights and vandalism, to name a few. The incidents are more frequent during the school year,” she said.

Though records obtained from BSO by the the Miami Herald don’t offer much detail on individual incidents, they show that 62 of the 85 calls for service to the plaza over the past nine months were between 2 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., a time when students gather at the strip mall after school. They also show that dating back to last August, 22 of the calls were for disturbances involving juveniles and 12 of them involved fights.

One McDonald’s worker, who asked to remain anonymous, said there are rarely any issues with the students. Students, too, say problems at the plaza after school are rare, though they admit to an occasional fight.

“But that’s what teenagers do,” said Aaliyah.

The police see it differently.

“Vendors in the plaza have been dealing with groups of juveniles meeting there,” said Carter. “BSO is often called to deal with incidents of trespassing, fights, vandalism, to name a few. The incidents are more frequent during the school year.”

Delucca was arrested after police had taken custody of another teen in the same parking lot. The teen, who police have not named, was involved in a fight there a day earlier, according to Krickovich’s report. Delucca was arrested after reaching down to pick up the teen’s cellphone which had fallen to the ground. Krickovich said Delucca disobeyed BSO Sgt. Greg LaCerra’s command to stay back and took an “aggressive stance” toward the sergeant.

“The male with the red tank top bladed his body and began clenching his fists,” Krickovich wrote in Delucca’s arrest report.

That isn’t clear on the video, which shows a deputy push a teen wearing a blue top out of the way, then pepper spray Delucca two seconds after he stood up after reaching down for the cellphone.

“It’s all made up,” school board member Osgood said of Krikovich’s after-the-incident report.

The cellphone video then shows Krickovich pulling Delucca to the ground. As he kneels on the student’s back, the deputy punches the teen on the right side of his head and smashes his head onto the pavement at least twice. Kids scream for the officer to stop.

The backlash was immediate. After Delucca was charged with assaulting an officer and obstruction without violence, Krickovich and LaCerra were relieved of duty by newly-sworn Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony. The deputies were later suspended in full, forced to turn in badges and stay off sheriff’s property until an investigation is completed. On Friday, BSO said it had turned its investigative files over to the state attorney’s office.

Some political leaders questioned the sheriff on his department’s use-of-force policies and he bickered with a Tamarac commissioner who asked that the officers involved be removed from Tamarac.

After viewing the video, Broward State Attorney Michael Satz dropped the charges against Delucca. Delucca hired civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump. Delucca had his nose broken during the arrest, according to his mother. Periodic protests, using the slogan #Justiceforlucca, continue.

Taravella students say teachers haven’t discussed the incident with them, but warned them to obey police and stay away from the plaza. That hasn’t happened. Earlier this week dozens of students once again swarmed the McDonald’s parking lot after school, waiting on rides or taking the bus. There was no visible police presence.

Looking back to the day of Delucca’s arrest, Taravella High senior Armoni Stanley, 17, said it seemed like the BSO deputies got nervous as the crowd grew.

“I don’t think they were expecting so many kids to come,” she said.

Still, Osgood, the school board member, said if the deputies were concerned a fight was going to break out, they could have de-escalated the scene by showing up in the parking lot ahead of the students.

“Why would you send those cops to the kids?” Osgood wondered. “These officers could have easily ignited a riot.”

As for Delucca, Osgood said he’s back at school.

“He just wants things to be over with,” she said. “He’s going to be traumatized for the rest of his life and that’s not okay.”

This story was originally published May 10, 2019 at 3:56 PM.