A New Jersey man is taking legal action after, he said, several Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office deputies used excessive force while arresting him. Attorneys representing Christopher Connelly said the deputies in question crossed the line when he tried to run away from what their client said was an uncomfortable situation. “I remember being swarmed, being tackled to the ground, and that’s pretty much it,” said Connelly. A federal civil rights lawsuit filed Monday states Connelly was visiting his girlfriend in Lake Worth this past February when he was approached by the deputies responding to a call of a domestic dispute. “He just simply wanted his items, his possessions — his wallet and his cellphone,” said civil rights attorney Adante Pointer. Body camera video shows the plaintiff holding his hands up. His attorneys said he was unarmed. When more deputies showed up, Connelly attempted to run away. “He was threatened to be Tased. He was threatened as relates to the ways the deputies were encircling him,” said Pointer. “His intuition told him that danger was afoot. Ynfortunately, that intuition came true.”: Deputies quickly tackled Connelly to the ground, and that’s when, he claims, things took an alarming turn. Cellphone video recorded by a witness shows three deputies — identified in the lawsuit as Zachary Hall, Christopher Byrne and Vinroy Hylton — beginning to hit Connelly as he was held to the ground, unable to defend himself. “Peace officers who were anything but peaceful, who were not disciplined, who were behaving much more like a pack of jackals, sitting in on their prey,” said Pointer. The lawsuit alleges Connelly suffered a traumatic brain injury, as well as other short- and long-term injuries that have effected his ability to work. “My whole body hurt. I didn’t even know what had happened,” said Connelly. Hall has been accused of betraying the badge before. In 2020, he was suspended for three weeks without pay for misconduct involving alcohol with two women under the age of 21. Hall and one of the women were thrown from an unmarked PBSO pickup truck another officer was driving. “That shows the lapse of judgment, the lack of respect for the badge and, frankly, the rule of law,” said Pointer. Connelly was charged with battery and resisting arrest, but those charges were later dropped.