Traffic Stop and Unsolved Murder Draw FBI to Madison County

Matt Boster

Viewed: 8333

Posted by: Matt Boster
Date: Dec 02 2014 3:17 PM

This story will be told in seven pieces over the course of the week, with a new installment at 8 a.m. every day. (This is Part 1) 

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - One deputy was suspicious from the start. Sgt. Chad Brooks -- who leapt upon the bleeding and thrashing man, only to take a kick to the gut -- would later write that in 14 years he'd never seen anyone resist with such ferocity.

"He was making growling noises and screaming uncontrollably despite no one actively restraining him," wrote Brooks of that night in August of 2012, of his arrival at the dark roadside near the Tennessee line.

There were already a handful of deputies there. Brooks writes Deputy Justin Watson looked exhausted and had blood on his shirt. Watson assured Brooks -- his boss on the third shift -- that the blood came from the man lying in the ditch.

Brooks approached the suspect. But the man had been playing possum. He rolled onto his side and put a boot in Brooks' stomach. Then the man, still in handcuffs, tried to stand up. Brooks tackled him to the ground. They struggled. More deputies piled on.

While lying across the man to keep him still, Brooks noticed the bruises and the blood on the man's face. His teeth had been knocked out.

The man's name, he would later learn, was Robert Bryant.

"Over the course of the next three nights, while I was off duty, I reflected on the extent of the violence displayed by Bryant, the location of the stop, and the proximity to Billy's Sports Bar," wrote Brooks in an internal report to senior officers. "I recalled the rumors of Deputy Watson's altercation at the bar, and began to theorize what would make Bryant fight with such violence toward Deputies."

He'd heard talk of a drunken sucker punch at Billy's and a fat lip.

"I began to wonder if Bryant was the same man Deputy Watson had fought off duty."

$625,000

This spring Robert Bryant sued the sheriff and eight Madison County deputies for stalking him, stopping him, beating him unconscious and arresting him in revenge for a barfight at Billy's. But he sued two deputies too many.

Hank Sherrod, attorney for Bryant, says if the suit had gone forward, they would have dropped two names: Sgt. Chad Brooks and Lt. Mike Salomonsky.

"Based on everything I've seen in the record, they tried very hard to investigate this incident and were shut down," said Sherrod.

Click HERE to read all the parts of this crazy story from North Alabama.

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