Dierra Fields, the woman who was body slammed and arrested by an Akron police officer following a family argument, filed a federal lawsuit Friday against the city alleging, among other claims, excessive force and malicious prosecution.
Nearly a year after Fields’ arrest in her Kenmore home, the lawsuit is the latest development in the high-profile incident that was first reported by Signal Akron in April. With a new police oversight board, a new independent police auditor, a new mayor, a new police chief and a new city law director, the case has served as a litmus test for views on police use of force and accountability in the city.
The police department’s handling of Fields’ case, along with its approval of the officers’ use of force, sparked calls for Police Chief Brian Harding’s resignation in October after he rejected Independent Police Auditor Anthony Finnell’s first-ever report challenging the department.
Finnell had said, nearly six months earlier, that Officer Thomas Shoemaker’s force was unreasonable and that there was no legal basis for her arrest, among other sharp criticisms.
The incident is among the cases that spurred Mayor Shammas Malik’s recent push to review and potentially change the department’s force policy, which he said gave him no choice but to side with Harding’s rejection of the auditor’s report.
In October, Malik said the video of the body slam was “hard to watch” but agreed it was within policy because, under the current use-of-force policy, the officers’ actions could be found to be reasonable in the moment, despite what they look like in hindsight.
Lawsuit states body slam by Akron officer constitutes assault and battery
Attorney Imokhai Okolo successfully represented Fields in her criminal trial last year and is representing her in the federal lawsuit against the city.
The claims in Fields’ lawsuit include:
• Excessive force, in violation of the Fourth Amendment, when Fields was body slammed despite not resisting.
• Supervisor liability against Harding and Sgt. Timothy Shmigal, who was present in the house and didn’t intervene. The lawsuit says the pair – Shoemaker’s superiors – approved of the officer’s unconstitutional force and arrest of Fields.
• Municipal liability against the City of Akron because it’s “approved, authorized, ratified, and acquiesced in the unlawful and unconstitutional conduct” of the police.
• Assault and battery, a state law claim, against Shoemaker for body slamming Fields without legal justification.
• Malicious prosecution, a state law claim, because the police “acted with malice” in pursuing criminal charges against Fields without probable cause.
• Negligence, a state law claim, because Fields suffered “physical and psychological damages” because of the APD’s “reckless” conduct.
Federal courts can hear cases that involve claims of state law violations if they arise from the same incident where constitutional violations are alleged.
In a statement to Signal Akron, Okolo wrote:
“It’s time for accountability. For the past year, Dierra and her family have had to struggle with the harm inflicted upon her by Officer Thomas Shoemaker. And since then, Officer Shoemaker and Sergeant Shmigal, who stood there and did nothing, have faced zero consequences for their actions.
“Chief Harding and Mayor Malik have justified and condoned their treatment of Dierra, and have given members of the Akron Police Department the green light to continue terrorizing our community,” Okolo continued, as well as inflicted “gratuitous violence” on whomever they choose. “For now,” he said, “we’ll see them in court.”
The lawsuit was filed after normal business hours, and the city’s spokesperson couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
Shoemaker was previously named in a lawsuit by people alleging unconstitutional arrests during Jayland Walker protests – he was recorded on video repeatedly punching a restrained man in the face. The lawsuit was settled for $747,000 last year.
City prosecutors sought to convict Fields in the Akron Municipal Court last year. In June, a jury deliberated for less than two hours before finding her not guilty of obstructing official business and resisting arrest.
The acquittal effectively rejected the city prosecutor’s argument that police were right to arrest Fields because she didn’t “sit down, shut up” as police told her to. They also argued that force was used against her because she could have potentially become violent when she turned her torso toward Shoemaker while he was trying to handcuff her.
Okolo and Fields have long signaled this lawsuit was coming and, in the months after the incident, the attorney said city lawyers made moves to head that off.
Before her criminal trial, Okolo told Signal Akron that prosecutors offered to drop charges against Fields if she signed away her right to sue the city. Okolo called the offer “unethical” and an indication that prosecutors knew they had a weak case.
If Fields had accepted a plea deal or if the jury had found her guilty, the likelihood of her civil lawsuit succeeding would have been drastically diminished because of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Heck v. Humphrey, which declared that people convicted of certain crimes can’t file civil lawsuits against police officers if the claim implies their criminal conviction is invalid.
“I take pride in who I am as a person,” Fields told Signal Akron on March 27, shortly after she rejected a plea deal offered by the prosecutors. “Of course when something is not true, you don’t want that to be put on you in any way. I take my career, schooling, everything like that very seriously. I have two children. It’s not just me that this affects.”