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Sick Child + U-Turn = Citation

Tribune phot by JULIE BUSCH

Gina Boyd was given a traffic ticket Tuesday for an illegal u-turn she made to help daughter Emily, 3, who was vommiting in the back seat.

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By VALERIE KALFRIN of The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 30, 2008

Updated: 01/29/2008 01:41 pm

Editor's note: Due to incorrect information from the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, an earlier version of this story stated incorrectly why Deputy Jon Tillis was investigated by the sheriff's office in 1998. He was investigated for becoming involved in an avoidable car crash, not for defacing a billboard, the sheriff's office said.

TAMPA - The last thing Gina Boyd expected to receive Monday while helping her vomiting toddler was a traffic citation.

That's exactly what she got.

Boyd, 27, of Temple Terrace, received a $123 citation from a Hillsborough County deputy after she made an improper U-turn from Bruce B. Downs Boulevard onto Fletcher Avenue to pull over and attend to her daughter, Emily, 3.

"We were in a pretty gross situation," Boyd said Tuesday. "While I'm catching her throw-up, I hear sirens behind me."

Boyd is a stay-at-home mother of three children whose husband is in the Army, serving in Iraq. She said she realizes she violated the law but wished the deputy had exercised discretion once seeing why she had made the improper turn.

Instead, she said, Deputy Jon Tillis told her she could have called an ambulance if there was an emergency. He also blamed her for spurring another driver behind her to make the same turn, she said.

"I feel like I'm in one of these unjust situations," said Boyd, adding that she wants to go to court over the citation but cannot afford court costs or child care. "I would like for his supervisor to look at the situation and see it's ridiculous. … I didn't do anything but help my daughter."

Tillis, 50, has been with the sheriff's office since 1980, department records show. He has declined to comment.

Boyd said she had called MacDill Air Force Base on Monday to have Emily examined for a high fever and an earache but could not get a same-day appointment. The base suggested she take the child to a walk-in clinic.

Boyd's 7-year-old son was in school, so she loaded Emily and her 8-month-old daughter into a Dodge Caravan. She was in the left lanes of Bruce B. Downs, preparing to turn onto Fletcher Avenue, when Emily began vomiting and making choking noises, Boyd said.

"She had never thrown up before, and she was holding it in because she didn't know what it was," Boyd said. "If I had thought about it, I could've put my hazards on, but it's hard to think in a situation like that."

Boyd said she wanted to pull over as quickly as possible, so she turned left back onto Bruce B. Downs and parked in a parking lot. She had removed Emily's soiled shirt and was cleaning up the child when Tillis pulled in behind her.

She said apparently another driver had followed her in the improper turn, because Tillis said, "You made the guy behind you do that."

"I said, 'I don't make anybody do anything,'" Boyd said.

She went on to tell Tillis she was taking Emily to "urgent care."

"He said I could've called an ambulance," she recalled.

After the traffic stop, Boyd and her children arrived at the clinic about 15 minutes later. "I was pretty upset when I got there," Boyd said. "I had a child who just had pants on."

Emily was diagnosed with the flu and two earaches, Boyd said.

Sheriff's spokeswoman Debbie Carter said no complaints have been filed against the deputy in connection with the traffic stop.

Carter said she has spoken to Tillis and that he gave her this account of the traffic stop:

When he first approached Boyd's car, the deputy asked whether she had an emergency and she replied no, Carter said.

He then walked away to talk to the driver who followed Boyd's U-turn and issued him a citation for making an illegal turn.

Tillis then returned to Boyd's car, asked her once again whether she had an emergency, to which she again said no, Carter said.

"He asked her several times if the child was OK, and she said she was fine," she said.

The deputy then issued Boyd the citation, Carter said.

Boyd said she phoned the sheriff's office later that day to ask about departmental procedures for traffic citations. She explained her daughter's medical situation and said she was told that deputies have discretion when issuing citations.

In his nearly 28 years with the sheriff's office, Tillis has been investigated for a complaint three times, Carter said. Two dealt with failing to appear in court for a subpoena – in 1997 and 2004 – and one involving an avoidable accident in 1998.

Reporter Mike Wells contributed to this report. Reporter Valerie Kalfrin can be reached at (813) 259-7800 or vkalfrin@tampatrib.com.

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