Miss Black Texas Sues Former Police Chief, City of Commerce After ‘unlawful' Arrest

A former beauty pageant winner apprehended after a road-rage incident two years ago in Hunt County is now suing the city of Commerce as well as the then-police chief who arrested her.Carmen Ponder, 25, filed the lawsuit in federal court in Dallas on Monday, claiming that her civil rights were violated during the incident. The woman named 2016 Miss Black Texas US Ambassador is seeking more than $450,000 in damages.Ponder, then a pre-law student at Texas A&M University-Commerce, has said that she was driving to a Walmart in Commerce on May 20, 2017, when she encountered an "erratic" motorist in a black truck. that she thought may have been a drunken driver.After she parked at the store, the truck pulled up beside her. A man got out and shouted obscenities at Ponder, telling her he had been teaching his 14-year-old daughter to drive, the lawsuit says.When she responded that 14-year-olds are to young to legally drive on public roads, he called her a "black [expletive]," the lawsuit says.  Continue reading...