A Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office alert says that on July 28 the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office arrested 23-year old Joneshia Wilkerson, a Black Army Reservist and single mother who was doxxed by the Tampa Police Department last month after being pulled over by an officer with the Tampa Police Department.
Wilkerson was arrested Tuesday in Riverview and taken to Hillsborough County Jail. Detectives from Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office Arson/Auto Theft Crime Unit have charged Wilkerson with failing to return a rental vehicle and fraudulent use of a credit card.
In a Wednesday phone call with Creative Loafing Tampa Bay, Wilkerson’s former attorney, Will Anderson, said that his former client was bonded out Tuesday night. Anderson is not currently serving as her legal counsel and is still reviewing her charges.
According to the PCSO, the alleged crime occurred on June 2. Wilkerson was pulled over in the overdue rental vehicle, a Black Nissan Altima, on June 18 by TPD. Pinellas deputies say that the vehicle Wilkerson was stopped in had been leased from the Hertz Rent-a-Car at the St. Pete Clearwater Airport. The leased vehicle had been due back on June 8. The media alert says that in trying to contact Wilkerson about the overdue rental, Hertz Rent-A-Car discovered the vehicle had reportedly been leased using a stolen credit card.
PCSO also says the driver’s license that had been used to rent the vehicle did not in fact belong to Wilkerson, but to a friend of hers who had lent it to Wilkerson in exchange for $200.
Hertz filed a stolen vehicle report with the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office on June 18. Later that same day, as Wilkerson broadcasted the incident of being pulled over by Tampa police officers on Instagram Live, Wilkerson stated that she had been borrowing a friend’s vehicle.
Detectives were also given surveillance footage of Wilkerson renting the vehicle. The media alert added that Hertz confirmed Wilkerson’s identity to Pinellas detectives using the Instagram live footage.
As she sat in the vehicle after being pulled over by TPD on June 18, she filmed a Tampa police officer live on her cell-phone as he pointed a gun in her direction, refusing to lower his weapon.
“Y’all I got pulled over and this cop is literally pointing a gun at me,” she can be heard saying in the video. “He still didn’t put his gun down,” she continued. “Sir, can you at least put your gun down?”
“I feel like something needs to happen to the Tampa PD officer who held that gun on me for four minutes,” Wilkerson told NBC News after the June 18 incident. “The Tampa PD, they are bullies, and the way they treat people is bad.”
The news of the July 28 charges reflects a shift from information shared by Tampa Police Chief, Brian Dugan, on Wilkerson’s arrest during a TPD press conference June 22. During that press conference, Dugan said no charges had been filed against Wilkerson.
“She was not charged because she did not have the knowledge that it was stolen,” Dugan said at the time.
In the days after her June 18 encounter with TPD, Wilkerson told the Tampa Bay Times the friend was financing a car and stopped paying.
Wilkerson spoke at a Stand Up for Black Lives press conference in downtown Tampa on July 24 and shared that she had recently been assaulted at a gas station and consequently hospitalized for two days. She said she’s received death threats, been harassed, and is currently homeless after TPD’s release of her home address forced her and her child to flee their home. Anderson, her former attorney, confirmed Wilkerson’s claims in his phone call with CL.
Earlier this month, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida called for an investigation into TPD for the June 18 stop, as reported by the Tampa Bay Times, stating TPD had violated Florida law by publishing Wilkerson’s name, phone number, home address, and date of birth publicly.
“My life has been in complete shambles,” Wilkerson said at the July 24 press conference, at times struggling to speak as she delivered a speech about the abuse and harassment she’s faced after being doxxed by TPD. “I can’t even talk right now.”
Wilkerson has been open about living with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) prior to the June 18 incident. According to Wilkerson, her recent altercation with TPD has caused her to have nightmares and has made it difficult for her to engage in everyday activities such as getting the mail without feeling fearful.
Anderson, Wilkerson’s former attorney, shared frustrations with CL regarding the conflation of failing to return a rental vehicle with stealing it.
“It’s a policy problem with TPD,” he said, in a phone call with CL. “There should be some notation for a rental car, as opposed to a car that’s been car-jacked.”
“So then you have officers doing what they’re trained to do,” Anderson told CL, “and you tell them to stop, which is ‘police speak’ for, ‘I’m going to get out of my car and immediately pull my gun and point it at you’—which is exactly what the officer did.”
“I think we all, regardless of what side we’re on, I think we’d all agree that that’s decidedly different from stealing a car, and definitely different from car-jacking someone,” Anderson added.
A lawyer for the ACLU told CL that they cannot comment on the new charges, but added that. “This doesn’t change the fact that the police should not have released her personal information to the public, or the fear she experienced when the cop pointed a gun at her.”
Tampa Dream Defenders, a criminal justice reform organization that’s lended support to Wilkerson since her TPD stop, has also been contacted by CL for comment. This piece will be updated with any statement provided by Dream Defenders regarding the arrest.
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This article appears in Jul 23-29, 2020.
