Maranda Faris,
Three Mt. Juliet police
officers who are accused of using excessive force against four apartment
residents in June face a settlement hearing Friday in U.S. Magistrate Court.
The four are among 30 residents
who also allege racial discrimination by police, the city of Mt. Juliet and
apartment management.
The lawsuit alleges that the
three officers arrived in response to a disturbance at an apartment complex on
June 10.
They arrested three teens and
the mother of one of them, used pepper spray on the crowd and threatened to use
a stun gun.
According to the complaint,
Officer Matt Mang arrived at Willow Creek Apartments in Mt. Juliet and asked
the three teens — Kari Banks, Kenneth Clemmons and De'Ontre Nealous — to turn
down the music on an iPhone.
Banks then began to argue with
the officer, according to the complaint. Mang handcuffed Banks and is accused
of grabbing him by the hair and shoving him into the side of his patrol car.
Clemmons and Nealous were recording video of the incident on their phones.
A group formed around the
officer as Banks' mother, Kitakiamma Banks, arrived and questioned why her son
was handcuffed. She became upset, was thrown to the ground and handcuffed, and
suffered a seizure. She was taken by ambulance to the hospital, where she was
ultimately arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
Clemmons faced the same
charges, while Kari Banks was charged with resisting arrest and unruly
behavior. Nealous was charged with disorderly conduct and assault.
Other officers arrived to
assist Mang with crowd control. Two of those officers are accused of
threatening to pepper spray the crowd around them and hitting Nealous and
Clemmons with police batons.
The complaint identifies those
two officers by last name only — Toy and Short — and the city of Mt. Juliet and
the police department refuse to identify them further.
The racial discrimination part
of the lawsuit stems from the actions taken by apartment management and police.
Three residents were evicted from their apartments, and the managers, Cheri
Hass and Trina Gonzalez, subsequently requested permission from the ownership —
Woodland Arms Apartments and Concord Management Limited — to have Mt. Juliet
police guard the complex. Hass, Gonzales and the two owners also are defendants
in the case.
The plaintiffs say their
movements were restricted by police security and that they were kept from
entering common areas of the complex after dark while white residents were not.
They also argue that all
arrests, restrictions and evictions occurred only to African-American residents
due to their race, not misbehavior on the residents' part.
The three officers involved are
still employed by the Mt. Juliet police department.
City Manager Kenneth Martin
said that it would "not be proper" to comment on the case because
litigation is pending.
Maranda Faris
John Geer
