ACLU of La. files lawsuit St. Tammany Parish deputies over choking incident
10th May 2021 · 0 Comments
By Fritz Esker
Contributing Writer
The ACLU of Louisiana’s Justice Lab has sued two St. Tammany Parish deputies for choking a Black woman over a suspected traffic violation.
According to the lawsuit, Perkins was with her 14-year-old son, DJ, and a nephew on the afternoon of May 5, 2020. She saw Deputies Kyle Hart and Ryan Moring ride by on their motorcycles. She walked down her driveway to see what was happening. When she turned to go back inside, one deputy commanded “Hey come here.” Perkins complied.
Moring informed her they received an anonymous call about someone riding a dirt bike around the neighborhood without a helmet (a traffic violation carrying a $50 fine). Perkins owns a motorcycle (larger than a dirt bike), which was parked and in her driveway. She said she wears a helmet when riding it, and on two other occasions deputies arrived at her house to investigate reports of someone operating a motorcycle without a helmet. Both prior complaints were resolved without incident.
In Hart’s affidavit, he claimed he and Moring “observed Perkins operating a motorcycle in the middle of the roadway without a helmet.” Perkins denied this in the lawsuit.
Perkins told the deputies she did not know anything about a dirt bike rider. The deputies demanded to see her license, registration and proof of insurance. She provided her license and registration.
The motorcycle was a recent purchase, so Perkins did not have an insurance card yet. She texted her insurance agent to ask for a digital copy of her card to be emailed to her. She told the deputies about the prior police visits and asked if the repeated calls were racially motivated.
The complaint alleged that Hart replied “Shut the fuck up! This call ain’t about fucking race!”
The lawsuit stated that despite no reasonable suspicion or corroborating evidence to prolong the stop, the deputies continued questioning Perkins, who asked to speak to their supervising officer. The deputies refused and Perkins said she would call 911 and ask for their supervising officer. When the deputies became angry, she told DJ and her nephew to come to the driveway and record the encounter with their phones.
A video of the event (youtube.com/wa-tch?v=oV7_xHds0P4) picks up at about this moment. The deputies told the children to go back to the porch, and Perkins responded that it was their driveway so they didn’t need to go back to the porch. Hart said, “That’s it, right now you’re being placed under arrest.”
Under La. Criminal Law Code Crim. Pro. art. 218 and St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office Standard Operating Procedure (“SOP”) 0200:02.125, the deputies were required to inform Perkins of the cause of her arrest prior to placing her in custody. Neither did so by this moment in the video.
The deputies grabbed Perkins, who said she was waiting for her insurance info to come (Hart claimed in his affidavit that “at no time, did Perkins explain her intent to produce information on the motorcycle”). She called for her son to come get her phone. The deputies pushed Perkins to the ground while telling her to get on the ground.
Perkins said, “I’m on the ground…I’m on the ground…You’re weak, boy. You’re weak, boy.”
A deputy called her “fucking slippery.”
The deputies wrestled Perkins’ arms behind her back and told her, “Stop resisting,” when she yelled “Don’t be putting my hand like that!” The deputies pushed her face down into the concrete.
“I’m not resisting, y’all don’t have to push my face into the ground!” Perkins yelled.
Both officers pinned her to the ground, with Hart sitting on Perkins’ leg as it was bent back in an awkward position.
“This is unnecessary,” DJ said.
“You putting a cramp in my leg, man, get off my leg!” Perkins yelled.
“Now you’re under arrest,” Hart said as he closed the handcuffs around Perkins’ wrists.
Moring approached DJ and commanded him to get back. Moring reached towards the camera.
“You can’t touch me,” DJ said.
“You can’t interfere,” Moring replied.
“I’m not interfering,” DJ said as Moring continued to tell him to get back and blocked the camera’s view of Hart and Perkins. DJ and Moring then both repeatedly told each other “You can’t touch me.”
Perkins can be heard (unseen because Moring is blocking the camera) screaming “Why you choking me?” Hart can be heard (unseen) to yell “Quit kicking me!”
Perkins’ nephew filmed at a different angle from behind DJ. Images from this video, included in the lawsuit filing, confirmed Hart did have his forearm across Perkins’ throat.
As DJ filmed his mother being taken away in handcuffs, he and Moring again told each other multiple times to “Stop touching me.”
The camera remained on Perkins and Hart when DJ said “You can’t tase a child.”
“Watch me,” Moring replied.
The camera then turned to Moring, who had a taser pointed at DJ.
Off-camera, Perkins shouted “They f**king racist! They keep calling the police on me for no reason!”
Perkins was charged with resisting a police officer with force or violence (felony), driving a motorcycle with no proof of insurance (misdemeanor), and driving a motorcycle without a helmet (misdemeanor). The traffic charges remain dismissed or unindicted.
The lawsuit claimed Perkins is now in constant pain caused by injuries to her back and knee and is no longer able to do her job as a home healthcare provider. It added that Perkins and DJ both now suffer from PTSD related to the incident.
Captain Scott Lee of the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office Public Affairs Division said the department’s Internal Affairs Division thoroughly investigated the Perkins’ complaints and deemed them unfounded. He said members of the public and media are welcome to file a public records request via stpso.com ($15 per record) to learn more. He said the office would not provide any additional comment due to the pending litigation.
Nora Ahmed, legal director of the ACLU of Louisiana, said the entire event was unnecessary. While Perkins still denies the traffic charges against her, even if she had been guilty, the crime she was accused of was one that would have endangered no one but herself. She was not brandishing a weapon or threatening anyone. Ahmed said there was no reason for the event to result in anything other than a conversation and a potential citation Perkins could later contest in court.
“As we have a national conversation about policing, we think it’s really important that we look at the inception of these incidents,” Ahmed said. “When we talk about communities and the fear they have of police officers, it’s because of incidents like this one that escalate so quickly when a simple citation could have been issued.”
Ahmed also said the resisting arrest charge is often used as a cover-up charge by police officers to guard against potential lawsuits for misconduct. Louisiana is one of only three states that has a one-year statute of limitations to file a civil rights suit against a police officer. If someone has been charged with resisting arrest, that is a felony that can affect future job prospects. That person might then delay taking legal action out of a hope that the felony charge will be dropped if they cooperate.
“The criminal charge is a deterrent not to sue the officer for misconduct,” Ahmed said.
The deputies in the Perkins case were not wearing body cams. Ahmed said body cams are helpful to both officers and citizens. If an officer is behaving in a justifiable manner, the footage will show that. Plus, when two deputies are involved as in the Perkins case, there will be multiple angles of footage. With only DJ’s footage to go on, some things are not seen on camera (when both Moring and DJ keep telling the other “stop touching me,” there’s no way to see who’s doing what because DJ has the camera on his mother and Hart). Without body cameras, the responsibility of filming falls on civilians who may receive threats of violence or arrest from police officers.
“The fact is body cams help,” Ahmed said. “We are putting the onus on individuals to make sure these interactions are recorded. This is not a risk most people will be willing to take.”
An ACLU of Louisiana spokesperson said Perkins and her family could not provide comment because of the impending criminal litigation against Perkins.
A public records request was filed by The Louisiana Weekly for the Internal Affairs report, however, that request was denied. An email from STPSO’s legal department reads, “Pursuant to La. R.S. 44:3A(1), prosecutorial, investigative and law enforcement records are exempt from disclosure in pending criminal litigation or criminal litigation which can be reasonably anticipated. It is our understanding the DA has charged Ms. Perkins with Resisting a Police Officer with Force or Violence through a bill of information and the case remains pending/open. Therefore, in an effort to maintain the integrity of the investigation, as well as prosecution of the state’s case in this matter, production of the records requested in your recent Public Records Request is respectfully denied.”
This article originally published in the May 10, 2021 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
