After more than 6 years, trial starts in Fort Worth police brutality lawsuit
It has been nearly seven years since Jermaine Darden died from a heart attack, after allegedly being choked, shocked, kicked and punched by Fort Worth police officers executing a no-knock drug raid at his house in Southeast Fort Worth.
The trial began Monday with jury selection and opening statements in a wrongful death and police brutality lawsuit brought by his family about a year after Darden’s death.
The case had been dismissed by U.S. District Judge John McBryde, who wrote in his opinion that Darden, who weighed about 340 pounds, “had multiple risk factors for sudden cardiac death and the severity of his cardiac disease alone made him susceptible to sudden cardiac death at any time, with or without physical exertion.”
The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans overturned that ruling, suggesting that evidence existed that Darden would not have died if the officers had not used a Taser on him and forced him onto his stomach.
The 5th Circuit court ruling was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which sided with the New Orleans court, and sent the case back to the lower federal court in Fort Worth for trial.
Darden, 34, died of natural causes, with sudden cardiac death associated with high blood pressure and application of restraints, the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled.
Darden also had liver disease and thyroid disease, according to court documents.
But a medical expert for Darden’s family testified that Darden’s death should not have been ruled “natural,” according to the 5th Circuit’s ruling.
Veteran police officers W.F. Snow and J. Romero were named in the lawsuit, and other unidentified officers were said to have participated in the raid and in restraining Darden.
The officers had executed a “no-knock” search warrant on May 16, 2013, bursting into a residence in the 3200 block of Thannisch Avenue without warning, according to court documents.
According to witnesses, several people, including Darden, were inside. Potential witnesses in the case said that Darden was not attempting to flee, attack or resist when police officers choked him, kicked him several times, punched him and shocked him, according to court documents.
Several officers applied their weight to Darden’s back, making it difficult for him to breathe, the court documents said. Witnesses told officers that Darden had asthma and could not breathe.
Officers seized 2.4 grams of cocaine, 1.8 grams of heroin and 3.1 ounces of marijuana, according to court documents. Authorities believed some of the drugs belonged to Darden, McBryde wrote in his opinion in 2014.
Darden was shocked twice by a Taser and did not get on the ground as ordered by officers after he was shocked with the stun gun, McBryde’s opinion said. As soon as officers were able to handcuff Darden, the use of force stopped, McBryde wrote.
Lawyers for the city have contended that Darden held his arms under his body in an attempt to resist apprehension, court documents said.
But in its ruling, the 5th Circuit court wrote that Darden, according to video from the incident, “raised his hands when the officers entered the residence, and it appears that he rolled over onto his face at one point after the officers instructed him to do so.”
“Based on evidence in the record, a jury could conclude that no reasonable officer on the scene would have thought that Darden was resisting arrest,” the court’s ruling said.
The court’s ruling acknowledged that Darden, at one point, “seemed to pull his arm away from the officers when they were trying to handcuff him,” but that “all reasonable officers on the scene would have believed that Darden was merely trying to get into a position where he could breathe and was not resisting arrest.”
Judge Carolyn Dineen King wrote a brief concurring opinion, saying that McBryde’s decision to dismiss the lawsuit “was, at the very least, premature.”
This story includes information from Star-Telegram archives.
