Appeals court sides with St. Tammany deputies on excessive force claim
11th December 2023 · 0 Comments
By Richard A. Webster
Contributing Writer
(Veritenews.org) — St. Tammany Parish sheriff’s deputies did not use excessive force when they pinned a woman’s face to the pavement of her Slidell driveway during a 2020 arrest, a federal appeals court has ruled.
The woman, Teliah Perkins, had filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against deputies Kyle Hart and Ryan Moring claiming false arrest and excessive force, among other constitutional violations.
A three-member panel of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals determined in a Nov. 30 decision that the deputies’ actions were reasonable and within “constitutional bounds” as Perkins resisted by kicking and taunting them as they attempted to handcuff her.
The court’s ruling overturned a previous decision by U.S. District Judge Wendy Vitter. The lower court had rejected a motion by the sheriff’s office to have the case tossed out, finding that a jury could reasonably determine they used excessive force. The district judge also ruled that the deputies’ actions were disproportionate considering Perkins’ suspected crime: riding a motorcycle without a helmet, a misdemeanor that carries a $50 fine.
Deputies booked Perkins into jail on two felonies, resisting a police officer with force or violence and battery of a police officer, and two misdemeanors, no proof of insurance and no safety helmet. She was later found guilty on a single charge: resisting arrest.
The appeals court did, however, find that Moring likely violated the First Amendment rights of Perkins’ son when he tried to prevent the teenager from filming his mother’s arrest. Moring shoved the boy several times, telling him to “get back.” When Perkins screamed that she was being choked, Moring stood in front of the boy’s phone so he couldn’t record what was happening, then pointed a Taser at him.
“You can’t Tase a child,” the son, who is referred to as D.J. in court documents, says in the recording.
“Watch me,” the deputy responds.
The ACLU of Louisiana, which represents Perkins, released a statement in which it called the First Amendment ruling a “resounding victory” for the “right for all Louisianians to record police brutality.” However, it questioned how the appeals court could view the video of the arrest taken by the son, which the lower court used to rule in favor of Perkins, and find that it “blatantly” contradicted her version of events.
“We thus call on the community, a true jury of Ms. Perkins’ peers, to also view the videotape and reach their own conclusion,” the ACLU of Louisiana said. “If reasonable minds disagree about whether Ms. Perkins continued to be abused after any perceived resistance, that is conclusive evidence that the Fifth Circuit’s unilateral view of the videotape is incorrect.”
St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Randy Smith said in a prepared statement that the court’s ruling was a “great win for Deputies Hart and Moring,” though he was “disappointed” that the court ruled against them on the First Amendment violation. Smith plans to ask for a rehearing on that issue.
On the afternoon of May 5, 2020, Hart and Moring responded to an anonymous complaint about a woman driving a dirt bike without a helmet in the Ozone Woods neighborhood of Slidell.
The deputies claim they saw Perkins on a motorcycle without protective headgear in her driveway. She said that wasn’t true, that she never rode without a helmet, and that she was on her porch when they approached, according to the lawsuit.
The interaction quickly intensified. Perkins, who is Black, accused the deputies, both of whom are white, of harassing her because of her race. The deputies said Perkins ignored their orders and became increasingly irate and disrespectful. That’s when they put her under arrest, forcing Perkins to the ground and pinning her head to the pavement as they handcuffed her.
That constituted excessive force, Perkins claimed, adding that at one point Hart choked her. The appeals court rejected those claims, stating that Hart’s use of force was “proportional” to Perkins’ resistance, during which she refused to put her hands behind her back, pulled away and antagonized the deputies, laughing and calling them “weak.”
The court also reviewed the video and said that although Hart’s hand “slipped for a couple of seconds onto [Perkins’] neck,” that “the video shows no choke.”
The video in question was taken by Perkins’ son and her nephew. In his deposition, Moring admitted that “he intentionally stood in front of D.J. and blocked him from recording Perkins’s arrest,” which the appeals court ruled was a violation of the First Amendment.
While the son was close to the arrest scene, he “was not a hazard, was not too close, and did not impede the Deputies’ ability to perform their duties,” the court ruled.
Filming the “police contributes to the public’s ability to hold the police accountable, ensure that police officers are not abusing their power, and make informed decisions about police policy,” the ruling reads.
Judge James Ho was the sole dissenter on the three-member appeals panel. Ho wrote that the court should have also rejected Perkin’s First Amendment claim and that “Moring was simply trying to establish a reasonable perimeter so that his fellow officer could safely detain D.J.’s mother, who was behaving in a hostile, abusive, and insulting manner.”
Ho also faulted the teenager for refusing to move away from the scene and for shouting at the deputies.
“The Constitution does not compel police officers to affirmatively help a citizen secure the ideal camera angle while that citizen is actively berating the police just a few feet away from an active physical struggle with another person,” Ho wrote.
This article originally published in the December 11, 2023 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
