Deaf man slammed to ground, tased after he couldn’t hear police, Colorado suit says
A Colorado man is suing two Idaho Springs police officers because he says he was violently apprehended and arrested when he couldn’t understand their commands.
The man, Brady Mistic, is deaf and mostly uses sign language to communicate, NBC News reported. He said that the two officers slammed him to the ground during his arrest on Sept. 17, 2019, despite his repeated efforts to communicate that he couldn’t hear them and didn’t understand what was happening.
The lawsuit names officer Ellie Summers, former officer Nicholas Hanning, the city of Idaho Springs and Clear Creek County as defendants. Hanning was fired in July following a separate incident in which he was accused of violently arresting a 75-year-old man, resulting in injuries, CBS4 reported.
The Idaho Springs Police Department said the two officers involved didn’t know Mistic was deaf and that one of the officers, Hanning, sustained a broken leg as a result of the altercation, according to a Sept. 17 news release.
“The incident was reviewed by former Chief Christian Malanka and the officers’ actions were deemed to be appropriate,” the release said, adding that the police department would make no further statements on the incident due to pending civil litigation.
The suit, filed this month in U.S. District Court in Colorado, says the incident began at around 7:30 p.m., when Mistic drove into the parking lot of a Colorado laundromat. Officers said he ran a stop sign on the way.
Shortly after Mistic exited his car and began walking toward the laundromat, he was “blinded by police vehicle lights and/or a spotlight shone by the officers,” the suit says.
“He had no idea what was happening, what the police were doing, or if the officers’ presence had anything to do with him,” according to the lawsuit.
The officers shouted commands at Mistic, demanding that he get back to his car, NPR reported. When he didn’t, the officers attempted to put him in handcuffs due to his “unexplained actions,” at which point he resisted arrest, Idaho Springs police said in the news release.
Mistic is deaf in both ears and uses American Sign Language to communicate, the claim said. He can’t lip read and can only communicate verbally using a few words, so he attempted to communicate with the two officers with his hands, Colorado Community Media reported.
The lawsuit alleges that Hanning didn’t give Mistic any warning before grabbing his sweatshirt and throwing him to the ground, causing his head to hit the concrete. After that, he was tased with a stun gun twice and yelled “no ears” in another attempt to communicate that he was deaf, the suit says.
“They went to force unreasonably fast, unreasonably rashly, without any legitimate justification for using force, which is particularly problematic for a person who’s disabled like Mr. Mistic was,” Mistic’s lawyer, Raymond Bryant, told NPR.
After he was arrested, Mistic was taken to a hospital for evaluation and then to the county jail. He was charged with assault on a first responder, obstructing a peace officer and resisting arrest, Colorado Community Media reported.
Mistic spent four months in the county jail, during which he was “not provided with an interpreter or any equipment to communicate his needs, other than paper, which was given sparingly,” the lawsuit said.
The charges against Mistic were later dropped and he was released, the suit says.
“Mr. Mistic felt alone, confused, and helpless to understand or interact effectively in the jail environment or with the outside world,” the lawsuit said. “He was frustrated that he could not explain that (Hanning and Summers) had misunderstood his behavior, used force without justification, and that he was innocent.”
This story was originally published September 30, 2021 at 12:23 PM with the headline "Deaf man slammed to ground, tased after he couldn’t hear police, Colorado suit says."