Police ‘out of control,’ says lawsuit accusing white NC officer of framing Black teen
A federal civil rights lawsuit accuses a white Durham police officer of picking up and body slamming a 16-year-old Black high school student and then framing the teen for assault after the officer injured his shoulder while using excessive force.
The teen, Tony Scott Jr., now 17, was at a convenience store during his lunch hour from Hillside High School in January 2019, he and his attorney said.
In the lawsuit filed on June 19, the African-American emancipation holiday Juneteenth, Scott and his father are seeking an unspecified amount of money in actual and punitive damages from the city of Durham, the Durham Police Department and Officer Michael McGlasson.
The lawsuit calls the incident a “modern day lynching” and seeks to hold the Police Department and city accountable for creating an environment that allows the disparate treatment of Black children without consequence.
“This case raises the question,” the lawsuit states, “Is your child next to be assaulted, hunted down by dogs, framed for crimes fabricated by police, jailed with adults and have their future hang on the discovery of a public video, all while police know but decide to hide the truth and lynch him instead of admitting their own mistake.”
The News & Observer sent the Police Department questions about the lawsuit and recent raises and suspensions for McGlasson and a second officer, along with general questions about how it would respond to a situation in which officers allegedly lied during the process of charging a teen or adults.
The News & Observer also asked to interview McGlasson.
A police spokesperson said the department will not comment on litigation and will respond in court pleadings.
City Manager Tom Bonfield said he hasn’t seen the complaint, which is being handled by the city’s attorneys.
The case raises issues of police brutality, the school-to-prison pipeline, the judicial system “and how Black children are mistreated and discarded,” said Charlotte civil rights attorney Sharika Robinson, who is representing the family along with Durham attorney Julian Hall.
Scott was charged with two felonies after his January 2019 arrest, but the charges were dropped three months later after a video was shown to the assistant district attorney in the case, his family said.
“This complaint establishes that police are out of control, and that Black people are not even safe in a Black town with a Black Woman Chief of Police,” states the lawsuit filed filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina Western Division, “and further that, as the Black community suspects, the entire police force is corrupt and reforms need to be made.”
The lawsuit accuses the officer and Police Department of excessive force, battery, and violating the teen’s Fourth Amendment rights with an illegal search and seizure.
The lawsuit also accuses the officer, the city and Police Department of civil rights violations, illegal seizure and unlawful detention, along with abuse of process, false imprisonment, infliction of emotional distress and malicious prosecution.
“Defendants’ actions show that they attempted to use the judicial system for their own purpose, lynch a Black child and hide from the public that their officers fabricate charges against those whom they are sworn to protect,” the lawsuit states.
Arrested in January, charges dropped in April
On Jan. 23, 2019, Scott and about 15 other Hillside High students walked across Fayetteville Street to a convenience store, the lawsuit states.
Sometimes he gets tea, water or Sour Patch Kids candy. “I switch it up,” Scott said in an interview with The N&O.
The teen was inside the store when McGlasson, 27, a Durham officer since 2016, walked in, Scott said.
McGlasson looked around, walked up to Scott and said he was going to search him, the teen said.
Scott said he refused and the officer grabbed him, holding him “harder and harder” until he threw him.
Scott fled from the store, ran to a nearby neighborhood and hid, crouching down in an SUV.
His father, also named Tony Scott, quickly received dozens of calls.
“They were saying the police is chasing your son with guns,” the father said. “It scared me. I didn’t know what was going on. “
He finally got his son on the phone while he was hiding out in the SUV.
“He was scared,” the father said. “He was trembling.”
The teen could see the dogs sniffing around his neighbor’s yard and could hear them beside the SUV.
“I knew they were going to let them loose on me if they had seen me,” Scott said.
The elder Scott told his son to stay where he was until his mother got there. Then all three met at the jail.
Police also called the father and threatened to start “kicking some doors down,” if he didn’t get his son to the jail soon, the lawsuit states.
On that day, a warrant was sworn out saying the teen had assaulted McGlasson, causing him to dislocate his shoulder, miss several days of work and be referred to a surgeon for treatment.
At the time, the officer was investigating a narcotics complaint, the warrant said.
Scott was charged with assault inflicting serious bodily injury, and assault on a law enforcement officer.
‘Teachers looked at me like I am bad’
Scott had never been arrested or been to the jail, the teen said.
At the jail, he was fingerprinted, had his mouth swabbed for DNA and was placed with adults, the lawsuit states.
He was released on $20,000 bail after spending a few hours in the jail.
When he returned to school, “all the teachers looked at me like I am bad,” Scott said. “Everybody is looking at me like I was different.”
The charges were dismissed by Assistant District Attorney Patricia Flood on April 19, 2019.
“In the interest of justice,” the dismissal notice states.
The charges were dismissed after Scott’s criminal defense attorney Hall acquired the convenience store’s video footage and showed it to the prosecutor, the lawsuit said.
The N&O asked to see or get a copy of the video, but Robinson said she would rather the body camera video be released to the public because it will more clearly show what happened.
ABC11 reviewed the video in a segment that questioned the use of force. The Police Department said then it would review the video, ABC11 reported.
Video
Robinson said the video shows McGlasson “storming in the door” and heading toward the first person inside.
Scott is leaning on the front counter. He pivots and backs up with his hands held up, Robinson wrote.
McGlasson tries to seize Scott’s wrists, and Scott moves back.
“McGlasson then seizes Mr. Scott Jr., applies his body weight backward towards the counter and throws Mr. Scott Jr. in a semi circle into the counter,” she said. “Mr. Scott Jr. hits the counter with enough force to bounce off of it and send the contents of the counter flying.”
McGlasson moved with such force, he dislocated his shoulder, Robinson said.
McGlasson falls to the floor and tries to grab the jacket of Scott, who runs out the door.
McGlasson called in another officer, Cornell Richards, who wasn’t at the scene and improperly asked Richards to take the report and swear out charges based on McGlasson’s version of events, the lawsuit states.
“At that time, Officer McGlasson knew that he had, in fact, assaulted Mr. Tony Scott Jr. And he knew that Mr. Tony Scott Jr. had not assaulted him and had ran in fear of his life,” the lawsuit states
The lawsuit also states that no witnesses were interviewed.
“The investigation cannot even be said to be perfunctory; no investigation at all was made before a child was charged with two serious, life altering felonies,” the lawsuit states.
Filing a grievance
The lawsuit contends that the Police Department, which had access to McGlasson’s body-camera footage of the incident, took no action to dismiss the unwarranted charges. Robinson said the charges would still be pending if Scott’s attorney hadn’t obtained the convenience-store video.
After the charges were dismissed, Scott tried to file a grievance with the Police Department, he said. First he went to police headquarters on Main Street, where he said an officer sent him to an office on Miami Boulevard. There, they told him to go back to headquarters.
When Scott got there, he called Hall, who then reached out to police officials. A complaint form was then brought down to Scott, he said.
According to the Police Department, complaints about police can be made online or in-person to the desk officer at headquarters or to any member of the department.
Public employee records
The Police Department reviewed the complaint against McGlasson, and sustained the allegations of warrantless search and seizure, meaning the allegations were supported by evidence, states an Oct. 31 letter from the Police Department to Scott’s father.
The N&O asked the department for all public information on the two officers involved in the case.
On July 13, 2019, two months after the charges against Scott were dismissed, McGlasson received a 5% merit increase to raise his annual pay to $42,766.
The employment records show McGlasson was suspended Oct. 28, 2019, but doesn’t say why, for how long or provide any other information.
Richards, the officer who took McGlasson’s report, was suspended for the sixth time in his 13-year career on Sept. 23, 2019.
Richards also received a 5% merit raise in August 2019 raising his salary to $60,176.
Bonfield, the city manager, said a months-long lapse between an incident and a department action like a suspension concerns him now and has concerned him in the past.
“Sometimes it is just a matter of it hasn’t had the urgency it should and other times there are reasons,” Bonfield said, such as an employee being on leave or an issue with a witness.
In general, if an officer receives a satisfactory or better performance review, which looks at a dozen different factors, the 5% merit raise is automatic, Bonfield said.
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Teen’s life has changed, attorney says
Robinson said Scott’s life has been turned upside down and that he relates to the world differently, his attorney said.
Scott and his father said they are concerned about the situation but they weren’t necessarily surprised as past experience with law enforcement has yielded similar results.
“It is a sad reflection on our society that the parents of Black children need to prepare their children for potential ill-treatment by police, but Tony Scott now has first-hand experience with just how wrong an interaction with an officer of the law can go,” Robinson said.
This story was originally published June 29, 2020 at 3:10 PM.
