An Irving man who says an Arlington police officer wrongfully used a stun gun on him last weekend has filed a lawsuit over the incident.
Jonathan Pierce said the officer mistook him for a chase suspect who is nearly 70 pounds heavier and of a different race.
“I don't understand how any law enforcement official cannot only mistakenly ID someone they're pursuing, but how can you shoot a man whose back is turned to you?" Pierce said.
Arlington police said officers were chasing 26-year-old Ronnie Lee Malone, who crashed a stolen vehicle in the parking lot of a pool hall off Cooper Street. Malone then ran toward Rack Daddy's.
Pierce said he was standing just outside the doorway when he heard the crash and ran inside when other people began running inside for safety.
He said he then felt a stinging pain in his back.
Witnesses said they told police they had the wrong man.
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"I dropped to my knees with my hands up screaming, 'You have the wrong guy. What are you doing? What are you doing?' And he points something at me and tells me to get the 'f' back, so I step up and walk away like this, with my hands up," said Daarien Cox, a friend of Pierce's. "I’m crying, I’m losing it, I’m hysterical, and he's just ignoring what I’m saying."
Malone is a 200-pound white man. Pierce is a 131-pound black man.
Pierce said he learned why police had entered the pool hall about an hour after he was shocked.
Pierce has filed a federal lawsuit against the city and the officers involved in the incident. He held a press conference Friday at his attorney's office in Oak Cliff.
His attorney, Geoff Henley, deployed a Taser in demonstration of how Pierce was shocked. Pierce was visibly upset by the sound.
"Every time I hear that sound, I have flashbacks of when that officer was driving that Taser into my chest and tasing me," he said.
Malone is being held in the Tarrant County jail and is facing charges of evading arrest. Pierce was released.
The Arlington Police Department said it couldn't comment on the case because it is under investigation by internal affairs.
The department did say that two people were involved in the car theft. But Cox said he did not hear officers at the scene mention a second person.
The officer who shocked Pierce is still working patrol.
