On a morning almost two years ago, then-58-year-old David Shearon of Christiana, Tenn., was driving around Nashville running some business errands when his pickup truck was rear-ended. The driver of the 2001 Cadillac that had hit him from behind took responsibility for the accident, Shearon says, approaching Shearon and saying, “I hit you, I’m sorry.”
But what could have been a relatively routine, albeit inconvenient, fender bender turned into much more, according to a civil rights lawsuit Shearon filed in federal court against a Metro police officer and the Metro government. The suit raises questions about Nashville’s law enforcement that go well beyond the false arrest that it stems from.
A slight limp from a pre-existing foot injury and what the suit describes as a consistently rude interaction with Metro police officer Coleman Womack, who responded to the accident, led to Shearon’s arrest for driving under the influence. At one point, the suit claims, Womack took the $1,700 in cash Shearon was carrying, only returning it at the instruction of Shearon’s lawyer, who was by then on the phone. Through Metro attorneys, Womack denies taking the money. The suit claims that Womack later argued with a General Hospital nurse about allowing Shearon to get a second blood sample taken at his own expense. The affidavits sworn out by the officer, the suit claims, contained multiple falsehoods.
(Given the current national controversy over policing and the social context of Black Lives Matter, it should perhaps be noted that Shearon is a white man.)
Shearon was charged with DUI as well as possession of a handgun while under the influence — he had a valid permit to carry the gun in his possession. Eight months later, the charges against Shearon were dismissed following a TBI blood test showing he had not been under the influence.
The lawsuit, which was originally filed in October 2015 but has since been amended and is still in the discovery phase, details Shearon’s interaction with Womack and what it claims is an unaddressed problem of false DUI arrests. But it spends more time on Womack’s history with the Metro Nashville Police Department and what it describes as a lack of officer accountability within the department.
“Beyond the specific issue of false DUI arrests,” the suit says, “as a general matter, MNPD officers have little reason to fear sanctions for falsely arresting a civilian because MNPD supervisory staff almost always resolve civilian-initiated complaints in the officer’s favor.”
The suit claims that under Metro Police Chief Steve Anderson’s tenure, from 2011 to 2015, citizens initiated 249 complaints against MNPD officers for “obstruction of rights,” but that 244 of those complaints, 98 percent, “resulted in no finding or repercussions against the officer.” The suit portrays Coleman Womack as particularly illustrative of the dynamic.
Prior to his arrest of David Shearon, the suit says citizens had initiated 26 complaints against Womack for things including excessive force, derogatory comments, intimidation and discrimination. But in all but one of those cases, according to the suit, the department made no finding against Womack, imposed no sanctions on him and put nothing in his personnel file. Those citizen complaints are interspersed with complaints initiated by Womack’s own supervisors at MNPD. In July 2007, Womack was arrested for assaulting his wife in a Publix parking lot in Smyrna, shoving her as she attempted to remove their baby from a car seat. He was suspended for three days, according to the suit, and returned to his regular duties. Less than a year later, an MNPD supervisor initiated a complaint against Womack for turning off his patrol car’s audio and video recording equipment during a traffic stop that was itself the subject of a citizen complaint. Still, throughout his career with MNPD, which began in 1996, Womack received strong performance reviews and was praised for his high number of arrests.
The suit also details Shearon’s own experience with filing a complaint against Womack, for which Womack was exonerated.
Shearon’s attorney Kyle Mothershead declined to add any comment to the filing, and MNPD spokesperson Don Aaron declined an interview about the suit and the issues raised by it, providing a written statement instead.
“Frankly, Metro has a lot to say about this, but will do so to the court,” he said. “This police department has absolute and full faith and confidence in Office of Professional Accountability Director Ms. Kathy Morante, a former Tennessee Deputy Attorney General and former Assistant District Attorney General, as well as the investigators who report to her.”
Metro Department of Law Director Jon Cooper also declined to comment on the pending litigation.
Among Shearon’s requests for relief is a request that “Metro be enjoined to reform its Office of Professional Accountability by creating a citizen review board to provide external oversight to the resolution of civilian-initiated complaints against officers.”
The case is set for a jury trial starting in December 2017.
