A federal judge this week reportedly ruled that a former Secret Service agent’s lawsuit claiming two U.S. Park Police officers arrested him because he is black can go forward.
The lawsuit, filed by former Secret Service agent Nathaniel Hicks in federal court in Maryland, alleges Officer Gerald Ferreyra arrested him on a Maryland interstate in July of 2015 as Hicks was waiting to join then-Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson’s motorcade, according to NBC News.
{mosads}Ferreyra “drew his gun, pointed the weapon at Special Agent Hicks, and began screaming at him,” according to the lawsuit, prompting Hicks to explain that he was an agent waiting in his car, which was equipped with a police antenna and a strobing bar.
Hicks then gave Ferreya his credentials, who called for backup while still pointing his gun, the lawsuit alleges.
Park Police Officer Brian Phillips arrived and, even though the two officers confirmed Hicks was a Secret Service agent, they reportedly held him for more than an hour and refused to let him go.
Hicks was later released after the two officers’s supervisor arrived. He left the scene and was pulled over by Phillips, who again asked to see Hicks’s identification and car registration “despite just having had possession of these documents, and continued to talk to him in a demeaning and degrading tone with no possible justification,” the lawsuit says.
Phillips said he did not recognize Hicks when he pulled him over for allegedly talking on the phone while driving erratically. Law enforcement officers may legally be on the phone while driving.
Both officers say Hicks’s lawsuit should be dismissed, citing qualified immunity, which protects police from civil damages as long as their actions are reasonably lawful and don’t violate a person’s rights.
U.S. District Judge Paul Grimm denied the officers’ call for a dismissal, saying they were not able to prove why they didn’t release Hicks before the motorcade he was supposed to join arrived.
“It is clearly established that detaining a person under these circumstances — when the officers had a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity was underway but, after some investigation, became aware that no criminal activity was happening at the scene — is a violation of the individual’s Fourth Amendment rights,” Grimm wrote, determining that parts of the suit should go to trial by jury, NBC News reports.
Hicks is suing for compensatory and punitive damages, saying he suffered “significant embarrassment, humiliation, emotional distress, and the deprivation of his constitutional rights.”