SEATTLE — A 35-year-old Kent man has filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit against the King County Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention, several of its officers and the Kent Police Department after he was acquitted of assaulting them during a rough arrest at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in June 2018.
Devon Pines, in a lawsuit filed March 30 in U.S. District Court in Seattle, alleges that the officers acted “wantonly and oppressively” when they tackled, repeatedly Tased and struck Pines with fists after he became verbally abusive when they ejected him from the lobby of the Regional Justice Center, where he was attempting to use an automated kiosk to put money on a relative’s jail account.
It alleges the officers then attempted to “cover up” their use of force by failing to note in their reports that Pines had complied with their orders before they jumped and handcuffed him in a hallway — a fact captured on county surveillance video that was withheld from Pines’ attorneys for months, according to the lawsuit and court records.
Noah Haglund, a spokesman for the DAJD, said Monday that the department was aware of the lawsuit. “We do not typically comment on pending litigation, and we are not making public statements about the case at this time,” he said.
Pines had entered the reception area of the RJC near closing time on June 4, 2018, and can be seen waving a bill while, according to reports, asking passersby and the window clerk for change.
The video shows that there were other people in the lobby at closing time that evening, but the lawsuit alleges two DAJD corrections officers keyed in on Pines at the kiosk and told him it was time to leave.
“He wasn’t the only person there,” said his criminal-defense attorney, Matthew Zenner, at Pines’ May 2019 criminal trial. “But he’s the only Black man who was there at the time.”
When Pines protested, the lawsuit alleges that King County Corrections Officer Timothy McMurrick unplugged the kiosk. Zenner said at trial that Pines lost the money he’d put in the machine.
At that point, the officers reported that Pines became belligerent and began to call them names and taunt them, but headed for the exit with both officers close behind.
Zenner, who reminded the jury at trial that the corrections officers are not police and do not have the same authority as an officer to use force and make arrests, said the video shows McMurrick and another DAJD officer, Scott Attaway, “herding” Pines down a long hallway, both just inches away from him.
According to Attaway’s report, Pines taunted the officers while saying he intended to “slow walk” out of the building. The officer wrote that when he ordered Pines to remove his hands from his pockets, he swore at him and refused, which is when the officer said he drew and pointed his Taser at Pines.
McMurrick, meantime, grabbed Pines by the arm while another DAJD officer, identified as Sgt. Steven Whidby, arrived and deployed his Taser, the darts striking Pines’ coat and having no obvious effect, the sergeant wrote. So he fired a second set of darts, which again “did not have the desired effect,” the report said. He tried to deploy the device at least three more times.
“Dissatisfied with the level of Mr. Pines’ perceived reaction to the first electrocution, Defendant Whidby immediately applied multiple additional Taser shocks,” the lawsuit alleges. Reports on the incident show Whidby’s Taser was triggered four times in 18 seconds.
Meantime, McMurrick took Pines to the ground, and said Pines attempted to bite his hand. He wrote that he responded with “a few closed fist strikes” to his head. McMurrick, too, wrote that Pines refused repeated orders to remove his hands from his pockets and that he was belligerent and using expletives toward the officers.
After Pines was handcuffed, the DAJD officers called Kent police, who arrested Pines on investigation of fourth-degree assault based on the DAJD officers’ representations.
According to a recording of Pines’ May 13, 2019 criminal trial in Kent Municipal Court, Zenner, his defense attorney said he had subpoenaed any video of the incident six months previous, but only was told that day by prosecutors that video existed. After the jury saw the video and heard testimony from the officers involved, Devon Pines was acquitted.
The video shows Pines had his hands up when he walked into the hallway and that they were visible much of the time as he walked down the corridor, one officer just inches off his back, the other close at his side.
Just before he is Tazed and tackled, Pines can be seen lifting his shirt and pulling out the pockets of his pants to show he had no weapon. He was unarmed.
“What we have here is not at all what the city has told you about,” Zenner told the jury. “If anyone is the aggressor here, it is the corrections officers.”
Pines, he said, “is scared that this officer is pointing a Taser at him for doing exactly what he’s supposed to be doing. … Then they tackle him and beat the crap out of him.
Jacey Liu, one of the attorneys representing Pines in the civil lawsuit, said “countless Black Americans face this type of injustice day in and day out.
“We’re proud of our client for having the courage to stand up not only for himself but to give a voice to so many others like him whose stories have not been told,” she said.
The lawsuit alleges the Kent Police Department failed to conduct an adequate investigation into the incident before arresting Pines based on the DAJD’s officers’ statements, and that police should have sought out and reviewed the video before taking the DAJD’s officers’ word for what happened.
