Nicolas Morales Jr (14): “I hope the Collier County Sheriff can see what they did, that they can learn from their mistakes. I want them to take action, and to have something to say to us. We just want justice, that is all we want.”
Jesse Andrade, Nicolas Jr’s stepbrother: “Nicolas was a father, he was a brother, he was a son, he was a human being… but [the Sheriff’s Officers] didn’t see him like that, they just seen him like any other migrant worker, and just thought, I can get away with this. But they didn’t know that Nicolas had a strong family behind him.”
MacArthur Justice Center’s Alexa Van Brunt: “We bring this lawsuit above all to seek justice for Nicolas Morales’s family… and to shed light on the policies and practices of the Collier County Sheriff’s Office, which is perpetuating a culture of violence and a lack of accountability.”
This past Thursday afternoon, outside the federal courthouse in downtown Fort Myers, Florida — 37 miles from the quiet streets of Farmworker Village in Immokalee, where nearly two years ago Collier County Sheriff’s Deputy Pierre Jean killed farmworker and single father Nicolas Morales with three bullets shot at point blank range — Nicolas Morales Jr, 14, and several members of his extended family gathered with their legal team and members of the Immokalee community to deliver a message to the Collier County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO): The fight for justice in the wake of the CCSO’s brutal and unjustified killing of Nicolas is far from over.
Following months of diligent work behind the scenes, the legal team representing Nicolas’s family filed a federal civil rights lawsuit last week against the three deputies involved in Nicolas’s death – Corporal Pierre Jean, Corporal Nathan Kirk, and Deputy Brian Tarazona – as well as Collier County Sheriff Kevin Rambosk himself for, among other things, “perpetuat[ing] a culture of violence and impunity within the CCSO, [by] failing to discipline officers who needlessly beat, tase and shoot civilians.”
