Laney Harris files defamation suit
A defamation lawsuit filed Thursday by Texarkana, Ark., Ward 2 Director Laney Harris alleges two community volunteers have slandered his good name and tarnished his reputation.
Harris’ suit names Deanna O’Malley and James Zumwalt as defendants. O’Malley routinely gives her time to help organize local events and projects, including the city’s RailFest community festival. Zumwalt volunteered at the May 2017 RailFest.
Harris did not return a call for comment Friday.
While Harris’ suit names only two private citizens as defendants, his complaint centers around the City Board of Directors censure of him in June 2017 and his removal from the city’s Advertising and Promotion Commission at the same time. Harris’ complaint appears to seek damages from O’Malley and Zumwalt for publicity surrounding a confrontation between Harris and Zumwalt at the 2017 RailFest, which is among reasons given by Texarkana, Ark., Mayor Ruth Penney-Bell for Harris’ censure by the board in June 2017.
O’Malley is credited in a June 2017 Gazette article as witnessing Harris furtively moving about the May 2017 RailFest event and hiding as he took photos. On Friday, Zumwalt recalled he confronted Harris at the 2017 RailFest and after a brief conversation, offered to shake Harris’ hand.
“Fasting approach was a white male from the east of Broad Street and after he identify himself as James Zumwalt falsely stated that he observed the plaintiff hiding in bushes taking picturing (sic),” Harris’ complaint states. “… During the entire time the plaintiff stand there in a non-agelessly (sic) (arms folded) manner while Mr. Zumwalt continues to make harassment and derogatory comments toward the plaintiff (sic).”
Harris stated in prior interviews with the Gazette and in the complaint filed Thursday that he refused to shake Zumwalt’s hand. Zumwalt said on Friday he has never made any public
statement about Harris to a member of the press or on social media.
“As a Christian man, I expect God will resolve this,” Zumwalt said.
Harris’ complaint repeats a quote Ward 3 Board Member Tim Johnson made in a June 2017 Gazette article about Harris’ presence at RailFest.
“They said he climbed into a tree and was taking pictures surreptitiously of vendors and those coordinating the event,” Johnson said in the article.
In a subsequent story that month, Harris asked if people were trying to be racist with the remark. He also addresses the remark in the complaint.
“This was raciest (sic) overtone,” the complaint states.
Reports of Harris hiding in bushes or trees and taking pictures at RailFest were unsubstantiated.
In the body of the lawsuit, Johnson and another board member are identified as defendants, but they, nor any other city board member, are named as defendants in the lawsuit’s style, or heading.
On Friday, Texarkana, Ark., Mayor Ruth Penney-Bell lamented that Harris’ lawsuit may discourage other citizens from volunteering their time for the city.
“We are a city with financial challenges,” Penney-Bell said. “We can’t survive as a city without our volunteers. We rely on them, and I hope that this lawsuit by one of our directors doesn’t annihilate our hopes of getting people to volunteer in the future.”
O’Malley volunteered to organize RailFest 2017 when the city’s Parks and Recreation Department considered eliminating the event because of a lack of staffing and other resources. O’Malley organized RailFest and other community gatherings, such as Mardi Gras, this year as well.
On Friday, Penney-Bell cited a harassment complaint filed by a deaf Texarkana, Ark., woman in May 2017 as the main reason for the censure of Harris in 2017. The woman, who ended an intimate relationship with Harris after a few months, complained to Texarkana, Ark., police that Harris was demanding she return a lawn mower to him she no longer had, that Harris was sitting outside of her home, that Harris repeatedly banged on her door and yelled for her, and that he referred to her with profanity in front of her 8-year-old grandson and her neighbors.
Texarkana, Ark., police warned Harris that he was “banned” from the woman’s property and advised him to leave her alone, according to a May 2017 police report.
In his complaint, Harris states one of the reasons “Defendant Barbara Miner, Assistant Mayor makes a motion the Board Censures director Laney Harris” is “he put himself (sic) a position for a harrassment complaint.”
Harris does not elaborate on the harrassment complaint within the lawsuit. However, in a June 2017 Gazette article he denied harrassing the woman and said there was no evidence he ever spent time watching her home.
“Now that’s fabrication,” he said in the June 2017 article. “Why is there no picture up there of me hanging out?”
Penney-Bell said other matters that played a role in the board’s decision to censure Harris and remove him from the A&P Commission include an unauthorized walkthrough of the Texarkana Boys and Girls Club building in April 2017 when the building was in disrepair and financing was being sought for renovations.
Penney-Bell said in 2017 news reports that Harris should not have arranged a public tour of a potentially dangerous structure without consulting other city officials, including the city manager. Harris claims he did contact City Manager Kenny Haskin and that he put a notice on his Facebook page the morning before the tour.
“The Facebook post was liked by about 36 people and it were share (sic) by 18 persons including Mrs. DeAnna Monroe O’Malley (former friend on Facebook), she attended the walk-through also and made comments,” Harris’ complaint states.
In the complaint, Harris claims that, “All the defendants voted to censures (sic) the plaintiff.”
As private citizens, neither O’Malley nor Zumwalt participated in the City Board of Directors vote to censure Harris in June 2017. Harris appears to ask the court to find he was wronged not only by O’Malley and Zumwalt, but by city officials as well.
“Declare that the actions of the defendants and with the ‘City’ the defendants has (sic) violated the laws including but not limit to: violations of Arkansas state laws, acting in concert/civil conspiracy, retaliation, slanderous and libel, humiliation, and award compensatory and punitive damages against the defendants for violating to; and that the court grant plaintiff declaratory and injunctive relief and compensatory damages against the defendants in assisting for violating his rights protected by the civil rights (sic),” the complaint states.
Harris complains that he has suffered damage to his reputation and relationship with the community and that his ability to further his career has been harmed by the defendants. The case has been assigned to Circuit Judge Carlton Jones.