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Le'Keian Woods, who was beaten in a viral arrest video, is suing the Jacksonville Police Department

A Jacksonville man who was hospitalized covered in blood after a videotaped arrest and beating that drew widespread attention is suing four current or former police officers who he says brutally violated his rights.

Lawyers for 25-year-old Le'Keian Woods say in the federal lawsuit filed Thursday that Woods suffered a type of traumatic brain injury, a ruptured kidney, nerve damage and other damage as a result of the September 2023 arrest that would lead to a conviction for resisting violence without violence had led the police.

“None of this was justified,” attorney Harry Daniels said of police actions that included beating Woods with fists, knees and elbows after he fled a police stop and was tasered.

Police reports said Woods was struck at least 17 times, and critics responded to videos of the incident, some of which Sheriff TK Waters said were doctored, by holding rallies denouncing the officers' actions.

Comment: Nate Monroe: Bad police work and a bad cop were behind the arrest – and release – of Le'Keian Woods

Video from the stop showed officers finding drugs in a truck from which Woods fled, and he was initially charged with crimes including armed trafficking in amphetamine and cocaine. But Woods was just a passenger in the truck and could not be linked to the drugs, so prosecutors dropped almost all charges and Woods was sentenced to nine days in jail.

Complaints about the arrest were briefly received by the U.S. Department of Justice, which said in November 2023 that it had found no “criminal violation” of civil rights laws.

The lawsuit argues that the officers — Josue Garriga, Hunter Sullivan, Trey McCullough and Beau Daigle — all used excessive force against Woods. Officials could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.

The lawsuit adds a separate claim against Sullivan and Daigle for pointing guns at the truck's occupants during the stop, and a third claim against Sullivan that the officer slammed Woods' face into the ground after Woods was handcuffed were.

At a news conference Thursday with his attorneys, Woods said he ran because he feared he would be shot during the traffic stop and that he had no regrets about his decisions that day.

The lawsuit filed Thursday did not allege any wrongdoing by the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, only individual officers.

Daniels said he expects additional lawsuits involving the agency will be filed, but that the lawsuits were initially brought against officials as part of a case strategy that he declined to discuss.

(An additional photo has been added to this story.)

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