NEW ORLEANS - Two St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office deputies were brought to federal court after the alleged violent, unjustified arrest of a woman in front of her minor child.
The complaint was filed on May 3 in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Louisiana by plaintiff Teliah C. Perkins against defendants Kyle Hart and Ryan Moring.
According to the complaint, Perkins was arrested in her driveway on May 5, 2020, in relation to two traffic offenses that the plaintiff says she did not commit.
Perkins says the defendants forced her to the ground, shoving her face into the pavement and digging their knees and elbows into her back and legs. Hart allegedly pressed his forearm into the plaintiff's windpipe despite her gasping that she was being choked.
When the plaintiff's minor son began recording the incident on his cell phone, Moring allegedly threatened to tase the child.
Perkins says that neither she nor her child posed any threat to anyone to warrant the violent arrest. According to the complaint, the officers came to the plaintiff's home in regard to an anonymous tip that a woman was riding a motorcycle without a helmet, which is a minor traffic offense punishable by a $50 fine.
The defendants are accused of Fourth and Fourteenth amendment violations including false arrest, excessive force, unlawful seizure, battery, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress and assault.
The plaintiff is represented by Reid Collins and Tsai LLP of Austin TX and the ACLU of New Orleans.