MIAMI – A Florida man, who claims he was wrongfully identified as a suspected shooter at two Miami-area high schools in 2022, is now suing the Miami-Dade County School Board and the two school officers who detained him.
Plaintiff Ja’u Semaj Lucas filed his lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Miami Division. The defendants include the school board and officers Kynly Mileon and Jose Zapata, according to the 14-page complaint. Mileon and Zapata were employed by the school board and assigned to the Miami-Dade Schools Police Department.
Lucas accuses the defendants of unreasonable seizure and unlawfully prolonged detention, unreasonable search of person and property, and false imprisonment.
According to his filing, an unknown caller telephoned an emergency line and falsely reported an active shooter at Miami Central Senior High School on October 11, 2022.
The caller stated there was a white male with a rifle shooting students on the second floor outside room 101; that the shooter had just shot 10 students; that the shooter was a white male wearing a white shirt and blue pants, wearing body armor, and carrying a rifle; and that the caller himself was a student at the school. The caller gave the first name “Lucas.”
Minutes later, the same caller reported a second, identical active shooter at Ronald Reagan Senior High School – about 15 miles from Central – using the same telephone number.
The call was a hoax, according to Lucas’ complaint.
“There was no shooter, no shots were fired, no shell casings were recovered, no person was injured, and the ShotSpotter alert system returned negative results,” the filing states.
It was later determined that the call was placed from a TextNow number, which law enforcement later traced to an IP address in Ethiopia.
Law enforcement determined the caller was an adult male speaking with a heavy Middle Eastern accent. The same number was used to place similar hoax threats to schools in Broward County and elsewhere. The Federal Bureau of Investigation ultimately took over the investigation.
“Plaintiff did not place the call,” his lawsuit states. “Plaintiff had no connection of any kind to the call, to the telephone number used, or to the person who placed it.
“Plaintiff was a fifteen-year-old Black male sitting in his classroom at Central.”
But rather than listen to the call recording and compare the caller’s voice to that of any student – or take any step to test the anonymous tip – Lucas contends the defendant officers “acted on nothing more than the first name the caller had supplied.”
Mileon, Zapata and a third officer proceeded to enter Lucas’ classroom with their weapons drawn, he alleges.
They asked his teacher if she had “a Lucas” in the class; the teacher pointed to Lucas because his last name is Lucas.
“Nothing about Plaintiff matched the description the caller had given,” his lawsuit states. “The caller described an adult white male wearing body armor and carrying a rifle.
“Plaintiff had committed no offense, was violating no school rule, and had done nothing to arouse suspicion.”
The defendant officers proceeded to seize Lucas, place him in handcuffs, and remove him from the classroom, his suit alleges.
He and his bookbag were then searched and cleared, he claims.
“From that moment forward, the Defendant Officers knew that Plaintiff was unarmed, was compliant, was a fifteen-year-old child, and posed no threat to anyone,” the suit states. “Any conceivable justification for restraining him had been exhausted.
“Notwithstanding, the Defendant Officers kept Plaintiff in handcuffs and walked him, still restrained, out of his classroom, down the stairs, and through his own school building in view of other students and staff, to an office on a lower floor.”
He was then left in handcuffs for hours, Lucas contends. At one point, another officer – not employed by the school board – allegedly struck him in the stomach with a closed fist.
“He was never charged with any offense; no citation, complaint affidavit, or arrest form was ever issued; and the reported threat was determined to be non-credible and unfounded,” the suit states.
Lucas seeks compensatory, special, consequential, punitive, exemplary, and nominal damages. He also seeks attorney fees and pre- and post-judgment interest.
Pierre Simon in Fort Lauderdale is representing him in the suit.
