LAFAYETTE - Lafayette police face a lawsuit alleging false arrest and excessive force at a bowling alley.
Gerald Celestine, individually and on behalf of his minor children, G.C. and J.C., filed a federal complaint on September 7 in the Western District of Louisiana against Lafayette City-Parish Consolidated Government and former police chief Scott Morgan.
According to the complaint, on September 5, 2020, unknown police officers responded to a report of a man with a gun, but arrived to find no one fitting the description. Approximately 30 minutes later, they conducted an unrelated traffic stop at the same location and noticed 16-year-old J.C. waiting in line outside Acadiana Lanes bowling alley with his twin brother, G.C., and other teenage friends, the suit says.
J.C. and G.C. were patiently and lawfully waiting in line outside of the bowling alley, when one of the officers approached J.C., immediately arrested him and escorted him behind the LPD unit parked in the lot adjacent to the sidewalk, the suit says. J.C. was arrested, but there was no evidence J.C. had a gun or any other weapon on his person, and neither were there any reports or complaints that J.C. had engaged in illegal activity, the suit says.
J.C.’s brother, G.C., calmly and rationally approached one or more of the officers and inquired why his brother was being arrested. An officer then grabbed the front of G.C.’s shirt and aggressively forced G.C. backwards from the edge of the sidewalk to the door of the bowling alley, where he violently slammed G.C.’s back into the glass door of the bowling alley entrance, the suit claims.
Other officers then rushed over and held G.C. down as another repeatedly and brutally punched G.C. in his face and head at least five times with a closed fist,. the suit says, while officers never intervened.
At no time during the arrest of J.C. and G.C. was a gun ever found on either J.C. or G.C., nor was any weapon found anywhere at the scene, the suit says.
Celestine seeks compensatory, special and punitive damages for his children, plus attorney's fees and cost of suit. Celestine and his children are represented by Ronald S. Haley, Jr. of Haley and Associates Attorneys at Law, LLC.
U.S. District Court Western District of Louisiana case number 6:21-cv-03237-MJJ-CBW