A Florida deputy sheriff was fired and arrested after bodycam video flagged by a public defender showed that he flung an intoxicated, handcuffed man out of a patrol car, causing the man to hit his head on the pavement and lose consciousness.
Prior to that discovery, Nassau County Sheriff’s Office Deputy William Woods, 32, had repeatedly lied about what happened during his encounter with the hapless Tyler Meritt, a Georgia man visiting Amelia Island near Fernandina Beach, who on July 6, 2025, got hammered at the aptly named Hammerhead Bar, then drove his truck to a hotel across the street.
Woods wrote in his arrest report that Merritt “lunged out of the vehicle as I was trying to pull him out of the vehicle … then went limp and fell to the ground, hitting his head on the asphalt parking lot.”
But the cruiser dashcam and body-worn camera video that came to light seven weeks later told a different story…