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Tasered Texan Sues|Police for Answers

FORT WORTH (CN) — Arlington, Texas police looking for two black suspects barged into a sleeping white man's home in the middle of the night, Tasered him in his underwear and fractured his shoulder, the bewildered man claims in court.

Dale Kerlee asked a Tarrant County judge to allow him to depose officials in the Arlington Police Department, and the officers who entered his unlocked back door on Aug. 14, 2015 and beat the hell out of him before "and handcuffing him like a criminal."

In his July 8 petition for pre-suit depositions, Kerlee says the Taser shot knocked him to floor "with such force that he separated his left shoulder joint, fractured bones in his shoulder and tore several muscles and tendons."

Kerlee, "a 58-year-old white male with a slight build, long graying hair and [who] was in his underwear," awoke at 4 a.m. to see silhouettes in his bedroom doorway with flashlights pointed at him.

"Drowsy but afraid for his life, he instinctively bolted from his bed toward the ominous presence at the doorway. Before he could reach the figures he was shot with a Taser in his flank and fell to the floor convulsing and spasming," Kerlee says in the petition.

Kerlee says his body instantly "slammed into the floor," where officers wrestled with him while he was "in severe pain," and handcuffed him

Kerlee had no idea that two young black men suspected of stealing an ATM machine had just led police on a high-speed chase and then fled on foot.

The officers had no probable cause to enter his home and violated protocol when they failed to announce their presence and intention to enter, Kerlee says.

Kerlee says he filed the petition to determine whether he has a viable civil rights complaint, and to force the police department to disclose records of the incident. His open records requests have produced "very scant information."

"It is now nine months post incident and it is still unknown if there are any criminal proceedings pending against anyone involved in the events which proceeded the officers' unauthorized entry into this home, but it is definitely known that no criminal charges or continued investigation exists related to the officers' conduct that evening or Mr. Kerlee's conduct," the petition states.

Kerlee wants the police ordered to produce body cam videos, recordings and video of the response to the ATM theft, arrest reports, disciplinary actions if any, personnel files of the officers who assaulted him, and other information.

He is represented by Rick Ward.

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