Lawsuit: Woman tased, arrested by Fort Worth police alleges culture of excessive force

Nearly two years ago, 31-year-old Dorshay Morris was treated like a suspect instead of a victim after she called the police for help, she says in a new lawsuit.

The African-American Fort Worth woman had been dealing with a domestic situation with her boyfriend, who was drunk. The two responding officers arrested the man, charging him with public intoxication, before turning their attention to the caller, Morris.

Sgt. Kenneth Pierce, a 22-year veteran of the department, and rookie officer Maria Bayona asked Morris for her ID, as shown in the officer’s body camera recordings. When she hesitated to provide it, Pierce forcefully grabbed Morris near her throat, and she began complaining she was being choked. Bayona, at the direction of Pierce, stunned her with a Taser.

Morris was arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon as well as resisting arrest. But the charges were later dropped — after Morris spent days in jail — and Pierce was terminated in December 2017 with the support of then-Police Chief Joel Fitzgerald.

This past January, however, that firing was overturned. Pierce’s punishment was reduced to 35 days without pay.

In the lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Fort Worth, Morris depicts a miscarriage of justice beginning with her August 2017 detention and continuing with the lack of punishment for the involved officers.

Morris might have been treated like a suspect, she alleges in the lawsuit, but the officers who assaulted and arrested her haven’t been.

“(Morris) seeks answers and compensation for her damages and wrongful detention,” her attorney, Jasmine Crockett, wrote in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit is taking on Pierce, Bayona and Fort Worth police, as well as the City of Fort Worth and its policymakers including Mayor Betsy Price and the Fort Worth City Council. It argues that not only were the officers’ actions racially motivated and wrong and the response from the city was flawed, but the city and its police have failed to properly educate officers on the use of Tasers, excessive force and wrongful detentions.

Additionally, according to the lawsuit, Pierce has a documented history of abusive behavior that has been ignored and misrepresented. There have been at least two other instances in which Pierce was accused of excessive force after using his Taser against African Americans, the suit alleges.

The suit alleges both Pierce and Bayona should’ve been immediately terminated for their roles in the unlawful arrest and detention of Morris.

Police referred the Star-Telegram to the City Attorney’s Office for comment. In an email, City Attorney Sarah Fullenwider said the city had not yet been served with the documents so “the City has no comment on the pending litigation.”

Crockett was unable to speak with the Star-Telegram by deadline Thursday.

But after the January meeting in which Pierce was reinstated, Crockett said she had not been looped in on discussions between the city and Pierce’s lawyer. She alleged “they knew they were going to backtrack and do this anyway.”

Morris said following the meeting “they are saying they can do anything they want to anyone.”

“If we do something to police, we get locked up,” she told the Star-Telegram in January. “But if they do anything to us, they walk away.”

Morris’ lawsuit paints the August 2017 incident and the response to it as a top-to-bottom failure of law enforcement, the result of a culture of police accepting instances of excessive force, even though official policies and procedures say otherwise.

Alleged culture of excessive force

Part of Morris’ suit uses words directly from high-ranking police officials who were outspoken in believing punishment for Pierce was just.

Capt. Michael Shedd, as the suit points out, requested an Internal Affairs investigation into the incident because he suspected Pierce “may have misrepresented facts in his report narrative for the purpose of creating probable cause to support” Morris’ arrest. That investigation concluded “there was no basis for the initial arrest; therefore, any force used to apply handcuffs was unreasonable.”

Fitzgerald, who was fired in May, took the rare step of calling out his own officer’s conduct. He said Pierce had become “inpatient” and “initiated an unnecessary physical confrontation” with Morris.

“I’m confident that everyone who sees this video, including members of this department, will agree this supervisor’s response and subsequent behaviors are absolutely unacceptable,” he said in a news release.

But the response from his department wasn’t as one-sided as he might’ve expected.

Rick Van Houten, the president of the Fort Worth Police Officers Association, said following Fitzgerald’s decision that he “got this one wrong” and “the facts of this case do not add up to a termination” for Pierce. A report filed by Cpl. Chancey Pogue, the department’s use-of-force expert, determined Pierce’s behavior was “well within the FWPD Use of Force policy and falls in line with what is commonly taught to both recruits and incumbents.”

Pierce appealed his termination, and in January, was granted his job back as a sergeant. His attorney, Terry Daffron, called out the “haters” and “race baiters” in a Facebook post in which he said “this case was never about race, it was about a person’s interference with public duties.”

Pierce wasn’t present at the administrative meeting where an official signed the settlement reinstating him, but protesters were there.

The lawsuit alleges this decision ignored Pierce’s history of excessive force, and it had been ignored before during his long police career. The city and its policymakers, the suit alleges, “failed to properly supervise, screen, discipline, transfer, counsel or otherwise control” the officer.

The police department has policies and procedures that specifically ban excessive force conduct like that of Pierce and Bayona, the suit alleges. But the officers knew, according to the suit, the city and its policymakers had essentially condoned this behavior “through unauthorized, yet established practices, customs and procedures.”

Pierce and Bayona “thus did not fear any repercussions” in illegally physically assaulting and detaining Morris, Crockett wrote in the suit.

“The City of Fort Worth’s failure to properly train and discipline its deputies,” she wrote, “was the proximate cause of the violations of Plaintiff’s constitutional rights.”

Those rights, according to the suit, include protection against “unlawful and unreasonable search, seizure and excessive force by means of unwarranted threats,” as well as unlawful arrest and detention.

Morris alleges in the suit she didn’t pose a threat to officers and hadn’t committed a crime. The officers “embarked on a willful, malicious, reckless and outrageous course of conduct” intended to cause distress, the suit states.

And she allegedly has suffered. The suit describes severe agony, anxiety and mental and emotional distress.

She has also incurred medical damages, loss of earnings and other damages in an amount that will be proved at trial, according to the suit.

Seeking damages

The lawsuit says Pierce and Bayona should have been immediately terminated. And in the damages section, Crockett writes there should be “punitive and exemplary damages against all defendants” totaling “an amount sufficient to deter and to make an example of each such defendant.”

Morris, she writes, should also receive damages for her pain, suffering and mental anguish; pre- and post-judgment interest; attorneys fees and the cost of the suit; and any other relief as deemed necessary by the court.

Morris has paid a jury fee, according to the suit, and is demanding a trial by jury.