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Man accuses Arlington police of unjustly using Taser on him

ARLINGTON - Police are conducting an internal investigation into a complaint filed Monday by a man alleging that he was unjustly shocked with a Taser outside an Arlington bar by an officer who mistook him for a vehicle theft suspect.

Jonathan Pierce told WFAA that he had gone inside the Rack Daddy's at 844 Secretary Drive to get some money from an automated teller machine and heard a loud crash in the parking lot as he stepped out.

Pierce told the television station that he heard screams and saw a bunch of people running toward the bar's front door, prompting him to head inside the club, too, for his own safety.

Pierce said he was about halfway inside the bar when he was shocked with a Taser by an Arlington police officer, who then jumped on him and ordered him down to the ground. He said the officer handcuffed and took him outside, where they were met by a group of officers who had caught the intended suspect.

He told the news station that the suspect looked nothing like him except that both men were wearing basketball jerseys, albeit from different teams.

Tiara Ellis Richard, an Arlington police spokeswoman, told the Star-Telegram on Monday that officers had been pursuing two suspects who had bailed out of a stolen Honda Accord when the incident occurred in front of Rack Daddy's.

She confirmed that a man was shocked with a Taser by one of the officers, detained, and then released at the scene.

"There was no evidence to suggest that he was involved or (was) the suspect that the officers were pursuing," Richard said.

She said she what prompted the officer to shock the man is being looked at as part of a routine review.

Richard said officers did arrest one man outside the bar. Ronnie Lee Malone, 26, faces a charge of evading arrest, she said.

The second suspect remained at large Monday afternoon, Richard said.

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