A 27-year-old security guard from Texas, Silvester Hayes, who lost his job and home due to a wrongful arrest in 2021, is taking legal action against the city of Dallas and several police officers. This all started when he was mistakenly arrested even after one officer exclaimed, "We got the wrong guy!" They had mistaken the spelling of his first name, which was different from the domestic violence suspect they were searching for.
In his lawsuit filed on October 16 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Hayes claims that Dallas Police Department officers Walter Paul Guab, Holly Harris, and others violated his rights under the Fourth and 14th Amendments as he was on his way to pick up French toast and bacon for his children.
As he was driving to a nearby restaurant to get breakfast for his kids, Hayes alleges that he was racially profiled, followed, and pulled over by Officers Harris and Guab. According to the lawsuit, Hayes had never been arrested before, and he believed he was falsely accused due to racial profiling. The suspect they were after had a name spelled as "Sylvester" instead of "Silvester."
Rather than checking Hayes's driver's license through the police department's database, Officer Harris erroneously told Officer Guab that Hayes was wanted for a family violence warrant. Without verifying this information, Officer Guab reached inside Hayes's vehicle and opened the driver's side door without explanation.
Hayes also claimed that when he mentioned having a lawfully registered handgun in his car, this information was used against him when additional unnamed officers arrived on the scene.
After being placed in the back of a police cruiser, it was only then that Officer Holly Harris checked Hayes's driver's license through the database and realized they had the wrong person. Hayes alleged that Officers Guab and Harris had physically harmed him by kicking, punching, tasing, pinning him down, and pulling his arm.
Despite an apology from a police sergeant for the rough treatment, Hayes was held in jail for days on charges of resisting arrest and unlawful possession of a weapon based on the misrepresentations of Guab and Harris. As a result, he lost his job, his home, and his ability to provide for his children. It took fourteen months for the charges to be dropped.
The lawsuit includes three counts in total. The first two counts, excessive force and unlawful arrest, are against Officers Guab and Harris, while the third count, also a Fourth Amendment claim, is against the City of Dallas. The lawsuit, filed by Hayes's lawyer, Mark Robinius, seeks a jury trial, damages, punitive damages, and attorney's fees and costs.
As the litigation is pending, the Dallas Police Department declined to comment on the matter.
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