Warren Sapp Sues City of Tampa Over Council Meeting Removal

Warren Sapp has taken Tampa City Hall to federal court over the day police walked him out of the building.

The Pro Football Hall of Famer filed a civil rights lawsuit against the City of Tampa in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, alleging officers violated his First Amendment rights when they removed him from City Hall during a Sept. 17 city council meeting. The suit seeks a jury trial, damages, attorney fees and a court declaration that the city's actions were unconstitutional.

According to Tampa police, council members found Sapp "out of order" for creating a disturbance and asked that he be trespassed from the building for the rest of the day. He was not arrested.

What happened inside City Hall

The confrontation unfolded about two hours into the Sept. 17 council meeting, while members were hearing a presentation on the South Howard flood relief project, which the council later approved that night. Sapp's lawsuit says he had gone to City Hall, at 315 E. Kennedy Blvd., to pick up "paperwork" in an office next to the council chambers. What that paperwork was has not been made public.

Video of the meeting shows council members growing distracted as noise carried in from the adjacent office. Council chair Alan Clendenin stopped the presenter mid-sentence, saying he couldn't pay attention. Council member Lynn Hurtak remarked that "somebody is being really loud." Clendenin stepped out to check, then returned and told the chamber that people in the nearby office were being "disruptive to city council procedures" and had refused to leave when asked. He ordered the chamber doors locked, tried briefly to keep the meeting going, and then recessed it until police arrived.

Cellphone video recorded inside that office, reportedly by Sapp and an associate, captured part of what followed. In it, Sapp tells council member Luis Viera, who had stepped out to observe, "I won't be leaving this office, so go back and do your job." Viera replies that he isn't leaving either until Sapp does. Sapp tells a plainclothes officer identified only as Barbosa that he isn't finished with his business at City Hall and that he has already lowered his voice.

Clendenin then enters the room and tells Sapp to get out because the council "can't hear." Sapp responds with an obscene hand gesture. Clendenin warns that he'll have police escort Sapp out if he doesn't leave. Sapp eventually walks out after officers threaten him with arrest.

The legal argument

Sapp's lawsuit leans heavily on the fact that he was never charged with a crime. His attorneys argue that the lack of any criminal allegation shows the city had no legitimate basis to bar him from a public building, and that officials instead retaliated against him for exercising his right to petition local government and attend a public meeting.

The complaint claims city officials "escalated his presence into a governmental confrontation" and argues Sapp has a right to seek information from officials and attend public proceedings without facing retaliation from City Hall.

Sapp is represented by the Mount Dora law firm of Anthony Sabatini, a Lake County commissioner and former state representative. The firm said in a statement that the city's response was "unjustified and unconstitutional" and that the lawsuit seeks a declaration that Tampa violated Sapp's rights, along with damages and other relief.

This is not Sapp's first run-in with Tampa's trespass process. In May, a city hearing officer upheld trespass warnings issued against Sapp and two other men stemming from a February incident at Tampa's city center on Hanna Avenue, rejecting an appeal that also raised First Amendment questions.

Sapp, 53, spent nine of his 13 NFL seasons with the Buccaneers and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2013. The city has not filed a response to the new lawsuit, and no hearing date has been set.

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Header photo: DanTD / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)