Women pulls out of suit claiming racial beating

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A white woman has pulled out of a lawsuit accusing her father and several other white Barbour County deputies of beating her black boyfriend for racial reasons.

U.S. District Judge Keith Watkins had scheduled a hearing Monday in the lawsuit filed by Tera Benefield and Ray Charles McCloud, plus their friend, Leon Jernigan Jr., all of Barbour County in southeast Alabama.

Shortly before the hearing was to begin, Benefield notified her attorney that she no longer wanted to pursue the suit. Watkins canceled the hearing because McCloud and Jernigan were not present.

Benefield, McCloud and Jernigan sued Sheriff Leroy Upshaw; Benefield’s father, Chief Deputy Ronnie Benefield; and two other deputies, claiming they raided the woman’s home on June 1, beat McCloud and used a Taser to stun Jernigan. Tera Benefield claimed her father had been upset for years because she dated black men, and the raid was prompted by his feelings.

Tera Benefield notified her attorney, Bruce Boynton, on Monday that she did not want to pursue the suit. Boynton called it “a surprise.“

“Miss Benefield has made several statements in detail about what went on that morning, and I informed her that she will still be relied on as a witness in the case,“ he said.

Boynton said McCloud and Jernigan were not in court Monday because of a transportation mix up, but they will go forward with the suit.

The sheriff insists that nothing improper happened. He said the defendants were prepared to play video from a dashboard camera in a deputy’s car that showed an uninjured McCloud coming out of the home on June 1.

“In my opinion, they never had a case to begin with,“ he told The Dothan Eagle.