Denton police failed to train officers who killed a man in mental distress, lawsuit says
A Texas father has filed a $10 million wrongful death lawsuit against the City of Denton that claims excessive force was used when police killed his son, Darius Tarver.
A representative for the City of Denton declined to comment on pending litigation.
Tarver, a 23-year-old criminal justice student at the University of North Texas, was shouting for God and smashing light bulbs with a frying pan and meat cleaver in his apartment complex’s second-floor breezeway in January 2020 when 911 was called.
His roommate, who was one of several people who called 911, told dispatchers that Tarver was not dangerous but he was acting strange. Others reported a man was acting erratically.
Tarver had been in a car wreck a week earlier and was in intensive care with a traumatic brain injury for one day, according to his father, Kevin Tarver. That Sunday night, lights and sounds began to bother Darius Tarver. He became paranoid and tried to barricade himself and his roommate in their apartment.
Four Denton police officers arrived and found Tarver in the second-floor breezeway.
“Come out with your hands up, dude,” an officer said loudly, according to body camera footage. “We just want to talk with you and figure out what’s going on but we need you to comply, man.”
Five minutes after police arrived, Tarver slowly walked down the stairs. The officers stood at the end of the stairwell, feet from Tarver. They yelled at him and demanded that he drop the pan and cleaver.
Tarver lifted his empty right hand. “Heavenly God, my father,” he said, and took a few more steps.
At the bottom of the stairwell and backed against a wall, Tarver mumbled about God for about 35 seconds.
He didn’t move.
“We’re gonna tase you, man,” an officer said. “Put that pan down.”
As Tarver was hit with the stun gun’s prongs, he dropped the pan and lunged forward with the cleaver.
Police Chief Frank Dixon said an officer was injured but details of the injury have not been released. At the same time, another officer fired his gun.
Tarver fell to the ground, and the cleaver dropped behind his head. Officers yelled at him to stay down. One kicked the cleaver away.
“My heavenly father is my shield,” Tarver shouted, holding his stomach. About 30 seconds later, he got up and grabbed the pan.
He lunged forward, and an officer fired two more shots.
In a previous interview with the Star-Telegram, Kevin Tarver said that officers escalated the situation by not asking questions or talking with his son. Rather than using the stun gun, officers could have used time, space and conversation to get Tarver to comply, he said. And when he lay on the ground unarmed for 30 seconds with a bullet in his stomach, someone should have stepped forward to handcuff him and administer aid, advocates have said.
“This is someone who has never done anything wrong,” Kevin Tarver said. “This is the one time in his entire life he really needed help, and he got murdered for it.”
In the lawsuit, attorney John J. Coyle writes that the city failed to adequately supervise, discipline and train the four officers involved in Tarver’s death.
One of the four officers involved no longer works at the department, according to an email exchange between City Council member Deb Armintor and the police chief that was obtained by the Star-Telegram.
The officer who shot Tarver was cleared by department on April 15 and was returned to patrol duty the following week, a spokesperson from the department said in October.
“Since he was off the street for over one year, he went through several weeks of refamiliarization and riding with Field Training Officers before being released to one officer patrol,” the emailed statement said.
A record request filed by the Star-Telegram asking for copies of the officers’ personnel files and disciplinary reports was sent to the state attorney general for review and denied.
Coyle wrote in the lawsuit that Tarver is not the first person to be improperly stunned by Denton police while they posed no threat.
In November 2015, Melvin Earl Williams Jr. was shot in the eye with a stun gun while he was already handcuffed, according to the lawsuit.
Williams filed a lawsuit against the city in 2017, which Coyle argues put the city on notice of the “unlawful use of a taser by police officers.”
This story was originally published January 11, 2022 at 12:25 PM.
