Deputies infiltrate family funeral in Lauderdale, arrest wrong man

Florida Sun-Sentinel | February 24 2005

After losing their family matriarch on Valentine's Day, the grief-stricken husband, children and grandchildren of Brenda Yvonne Lightbourn gathered Saturday to bid her farewell.

Little did they know that undercover Broward Sheriff's Office deputies had infiltrated the funeral, and would later show up at the Forest Lawn cemetery in Fort Lauderdale with guns drawn and a helicopter hovering over the gravesite to arrest Lightbourn's grandson, Donovan, in a case of mistaken identity.

"Just out of respect they should've done it in a different manner," said Lightbourn's husband, Franklyn, who is visiting from the Turks and Caicos Islands. "If you're looking for a suspect, you don't come armed and with guns as if you're trying to kill somebody."

Donovan Lightbourn, 20, is a former Navy seaman who says he received a medical discharge in May for kidney stones. He now lives in Orlando, and arrived in South Florida on Friday for the funeral, he said.

On Friday night, Lightbourn saw a uniformed police officer hanging out at the bus station when he stepped off the Greyhound bus in Miami. Later he saw a police car near his parents' home in Miami.

Sheriff's Office spokesman Hugh Graf said deputies received credible information from a Crime Stoppers tip that a murder suspect who had been on the run for two years was going to be at the funeral. They thought Lightbourn fit the description.

The suspect, Kareem Lightbourne, 26, of Lauderhill, is wanted in the December 2002 shooting of Kirk Ennis, 23, of Lauderhill, and the kidnapping of Monifa Smith, 24, of Lauderhill, a woman the suspect once lived with. He is on the Broward Sheriff's Office's most wanted list. He is 5-foot-7, weighs about 170 pounds and has a short haircut, according to a Sheriff's Office press release issued in 2002.

Donovan Lightbourn stands 6 feet tall, weighs 230 pounds and wears dreadlocks.

"We had detectives who had the mug shot of Kareem, and saw Donovan from a distance, and in their opinion at the time thought it was our guy," Graf said. "They detained him, handcuffed him, questioned him, [then] quickly learned it was not Kareem Lightbourne and released him."

Graf denied deputies were at the Greyhound station and the family's house. But he said veteran law enforcement officers with the department's fugitive squad conducted surveillance at the family's funeral services Friday night and Saturday morning, then waited for a moment when Donovan Lightbourn was alone at the cemetery to apprehend him. He said they had had a warrant for Kareem Lightbourne's arrest since Dec. 22, 2002.

The Lightbourns differ with Graf about what occurred at the cemetery. Family members and witnesses said they had just buried Brenda Lightbourn, 65, and the Florida Sunshine Band was finishing its final number, when at least 10 deputies stormed the gravesite, grabbed Donovan, slammed him against a car and handcuffed him.

Donovan Lightbourn said he screamed for his father, Donald. When Donald Lightbourn and some of Donovan Lightbourn's uncles tried to intervene, the deputies pulled out their guns, and told them to stand back, family members said. They said one of the deputies threatened Donovan with a Taser.

Graf said some investigators had their weapons drawn, but they didn't point them at anyone, and one deputy had a Taser that he kept to his side.

The family and a cemetery employee said there was a helicopter overhead.

Donovan Lightbourn said the deputies put him in a car and talked as if they had caught the right guy. When Lightbourn saw the photo, he pointed out that he was a different person. When they realized the mistake, he quoted them as saying, "It's not you, but you do know him." Then they released him.

Lightbourn said he doesn't know Kareem Lightbourne.

The Lightbourns said two of the deputies were dressed in light blue shirts and dark pants, colors that the men in the family had arranged to wear at the funeral. They said they believe the funeral home allowed the deputies to participate in the services.

Officials at Forest Lawn Memorial Gardens-North in Pompano Beach, which handled the funeral arrangements, referred questions back to the Sheriff's Office.

"To protect the family's privacy, we have no comment," General Manager John G. Banas said. "And as far as any activities involving the Broward sheriff's department, we would just refer you to them, as it's their issue and matter."

Graf said one of the detectives stood next to the guest book, but denied any collaboration with the funeral home.

Brenda Lightbourn and her husband were from the Turks and Caicos Islands and raised their 10 children in the Bahamas. She suffered a stroke in 2001, and moved to South Florida for treatment and to be closer to her children.

Family members said the burial was their last opportunity to tell her goodbye, and the deputies humiliated the family with their insensitive behavior.

Graf said the deputies were just doing their job.

"It's our job ... to go and arrest murder suspects," he said. "If [deputies] can get a cold-blooded killer off the street, they will do so."

He said deputies later visited the family and apologized, and most of the family members seemed to understand.