State: Troopers did not mistreat disabled woman
A Department of Justice brief on behalf of the Delaware State Police says key portions of a lawsuit accusing state troopers of mistreating a quadriplegic woman during a drug search are untrue.
The answering brief was filed by the DOJ in response to a lawsuit from Ruther and Lisa Hayes, a Delaware couple who say a SWAT-type team of state troopers beat and repeatedly tasered Ruther Hayes as his wife watched in horror. The couple's children, 9 and 12, were in the home as well, the suit says.
According to the suit, Ruther Hayes, a disabled veteran, was giving a sponge bath to his wife, who cannot walk or stand, in a bedroom of a relative's home in Claymont in June 2014 when police raided the home. Police had obtained a warrant to search the home, where two of the Hayes's nephews lived, because of suspicion the nephews were involved in drugs, according to the suit.
Their suit claims that although Ruther and Lisa Hayes were not suspected of having drugs or breaking any laws, members of the State Police SORT team pointed rifles at Lisa Hayes and screamed at her to stand, something she couldn't physically do. When Ruther Hayes tried to cover his partially unclothed wife with a sheet, the suit says, SORT officers used a stun gun on him and repeatedly punched him as he lay on the ground. The encounter worsened Ruther Hayes's schizophrenia, according to the suit, which was filed by the ACLU of Delaware on the family's behalf.
The lawsuit alleges several specific DSP officers used excessive force, committed illegal battery and assault, inflicted emotional distress and violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. It also contends DSP Superintendent Nathaniel McQueen and a host of unnamed police leaders failed to train the officers in appropriate use of force.
The state's answering brief, though, flatly denies the raid on the home happened the way the Hayes suit says it did, and even objects to calling what happened a "raid," saying instead it was simply the execution of a search warrant.
The legal brief, filed by Deputy Attorney General Michael F. McTaggart, refutes claims that SORT operators aimed rifles at Lisa Hayes and repeatedly ordered her to her feet. The brief also denies that officers beat Ruther Hayes, while acknowledging that police fired a stun gun into his back and detained him during the search.
The most vivid descriptions of the police encounter are "denied in their entirety," the state brief says. It is "denied that the DSP SORT Officers pointed assault weapons at plaintiff Mrs.Hayes or that she screamed for any officer to stop beating plaintiff Mr. Hayes," and "denied that the DSP officers were beating plaintiff Mr. Hayes," according to the brief.
The state's answer also denies that Lisa Hayes was unclothed, whereas the lawsuit says she was naked below the waist and at one point was taken out of the house, still exposed, for medical treatment. The state brief also denies that she was being bathed at the time of the raid.
In the months after the search, one of the Hayes' nephews was charged with misdemeanor drug offenses. Ruther Hayes was charged with resisting arrest, but the charge was dropped before trial. In a September interview, when the suit was filed, Lisa Hayes said what she and her husband went through showed police need better training on how to interact with disabled people.
"They need to take a look at when they encounter disabled people, how they approach them and how they deal with them," Hayes said. "More sensitivity. I think they need training." The suit also seeks damages for the Hayes's distress and suffering.
The state's response denies each of the lawsuit's 11 specific counts of alleged wrongdoing and asks U.S. District Court Judge Gregory M. Sleet to find in the defendant's favor.
The state's response was filed on behalf of the DSP as an agency, McQueen, and three of the four DSP corporals identified in the suit by their last names: Doughty, Torres and Ballinger. A DSP detective and SORT officer named as a defendant, Christopher Popp, was not represented by the initial DOJ brief. Carl Kanefsky, a DOJ spokesman, said a DOJ answering brief on Popp's behalf is expected to be filed within a few days. Popp could not be reached for comment Monday.
Sleet, in an Oct. 29 order, directed attorneys for both sides to meet within a month and discuss scheduling matters, as well as possible routes to settling the suit out of court.
Contact James Fisher at (302) 983-6772, on Twitter @JamesFisherTNJ or jfisher@delawareonline.com.