Dead teen's mom says Sheriff's Office 'doesn't care' (Last of 4 stories)

Every marked police car at the Orange County Sheriff’s Office is emblazoned with the motto: “Making a difference.”

That motto is meaningless to Cadillya Anthony, whose unarmed 18-year-old son Clarence “CJ” Lake 3^rd died during an encounter with a posse of Orange County deputies.

“They made my life a living hell,” said Ms. Anthony. “They haven’t made a difference. They took away someone who was precious to our hearts. They didn’t do justice, period.”

The circumstances leading to her son’s death were both unusual and horrifying.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Office incident report shows that after responding to a car burglary call in a West Orange County apartment complex, a posse of 10 deputies, three police dogs, and a police helicopter chased the high school student -- who was on foot -- until he ended up under water in Lake Sherwood where his body was found 36 hours later.

CJ was an honors student who had no criminal record and had never been in trouble. Ms. Anthony does not believe her son burglarized cars and told deputies – noted in the incident report -- that CJ was extremely fearful of police because he was afraid that they would kill him.

Regardless, a spokesman for the Sheriff’s Office said, “in trying to catch auto burglars the OCSO was making a difference.  There were 20-plus deputies who were out that day looking for the suspect, all hoping he would be found alive.”

Five months after the incident, the case was closed on another 18-year-old arrested in that same encounter at the West Orange apartment complex. The State Attorney’s Office attached a note reading:  “This case is not suitable for prosecution.”

Other than a written police report, Ms. Anthony and her family and friends have asked for -- but not received -- an explanation for how and why her son lost his life.

Two days after CJ’s body was recovered – on June 24, 2017 -- Ms. Anthony went to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office headquarters on John Young Parkway to speak with the detective handling the case.

In the case incident report, the detective wrote he was not in that office, but that he tried without luck to find a colleague to meet with her.

Ms. Anthony left the office but said she later received a call “from a detective stating that he was going to come over and explain to me what happened, but he never came over. He actually called me back and stated that he was not able to make it but would make a phone call out to another detective, but no one ever came to tell me what happened.”

The Sheriff’s Office spokesman insists detectives met with Ms. Anthony on June 27^th.

“That’s a damn lie,” Ms. Anthony said.

The Sheriff’s Office report backs up Ms. Anthony. Throughout the report, each time deputies spoke to Ms. Anthony and her family during the search for CJ, detectives diligently noted the date and time that they spoke; who they spoke to; and what was said.

The report includes no notes of a meeting with Ms. Anthony or her family on June 27th, or any date after that.

If she had a chance to speak with Sheriff Jerry Demings, who is now running for Orange County mayor, Ms. Anthony said, “I would look him in his eyes and ask him how he could allow such a tragedy to happen under his leadership. No follow up. No investigation.”

“It leads me to believe they just don’t care,” Ms. Anthony said.

LAST IN A SERIES

For more details on this case, read Part 1 by clicking http://www.newsorl32805.com/2018/04/how-sheriffs-manhunt-ended-in-tragedy.html

Read Part 2 by clicking http://www.newsorl32805.com/2018/04/why-would-black-teenager-run-from.html

Read Part 3 by clicking http://www.newsorl32805.com/2018/05/why-some-call-cjs-death-lynching.html

Read Part 4 by clicking: http://www.newsorl32805.com/2018/05/dead-teens-mom-says-sheriffs-office.html