Lawsuit accuses HPD of hogtying suspect

A Houston man sued five Houston police officers on Monday, saying he was illegally arrested and hogtied when the officers responded to a 911 call about an assault in which the man was not a suspect.

Alberto Ramos says in his federal lawsuit, filed Monday, that police stopped him in the early hours of July 21, 2021, as he walked home from a Montrose nightclub. Within seconds, officers forced Ramos to the ground and handcuffed him. He was later yanked out of the back seat of a squad car and hogtied, according to the lawsuit.

The suit says Ramos was racially profiled based on a vague suspect description that could have been applicable to hundreds of thousands of other Latino men in Houston. Consequently, it says, he was subjected to a controversial and dangerous arrest technique.

“This lawsuit sheds light on this practice of hogtying and of this practice of accosting people without probable cause and profiling Hispanic men,” said Kiah Duggins, Ramos’ lawyer. “The goal of this lawsuit, in addition to getting justice for Mr. Ramos specifically, is to shed light on these issues more broadly.”

Ramos is being represented by lawyers from Washington, D.C.based Civil Rights Corps. The legal organization in 2016 sued the city and county over their misdemeanor bail practices. Since then, Harris County has enacted some bail reform policies, though there are still ongoing lawsuits challenging the county’s felony bail processes as unfair.The lawsuit doesn’t explicitly call for the end of hogtying. Instead, the suit asks the city to declare Ramos’ arrest unconstitutional and calls for unspecified damages. Ramos, through his attorney, declined to be interviewed.

The Civil Rights Corps learned about Ramos’ arrest after he called a hotline set up by RISE Houston, a new coalition of police and social justice reform groups established with the stated goal of ending police violence.

The Houston Police Department on Tuesday referred questions about the lawsuit to the city’s legal department. In a statement, the city declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Charged with assault

According to court records, Ramos was not charged with assaulting a woman in connection to the 2021 police call in Montrose. He was charged with two counts of assault of a police officer and one count of harassment of a public servant. Court records state that Ramos tried to “evade and assault” officers.

Ramos is accused of “hiding” and “sweating profusely” when officers arrived. Police also say he ran when officers arrived, according to court documents.

Ramos is charged with kicking three officers, according to court records. The court documents say Ramos “appeared to be under the influence of some unknown drug.” The documents acknowledge that Ramos was placed in leg restraints.

An illustration included in the lawsuit shows how Ramos says he was restrained, with his hands stretched behind his back attached to a rope that is wrapped around his ankles. Ramos was left with bruises and treated at a hospital for his injuries, Duggins said.

“Mentally and emotionally, this has been traumatizing for him,” Duggins said. The arrest has had lasting effects, she said.

The officers’ belief that Ramos was under the influence should have stopped them from hogtying him, Duggins said.

The suit says police had no initial reason to stop or detain Ramos, beyond a 911 caller stating that a Hispanic man had been involved in an assault in the area. Officers did nothing else to investigate the call before they arrested Ramos, according to the lawsuit.

“It’s a completely inhumane way to treat a person, especially to treat a person who you didn’t have probable cause to arrest,” Duggins said. “It’s a deadly maneuver.” Duggins said it was “unacceptable” for police to use that maneuver on Ramos.

She noted that Ramos was shirtless and sweating when officers approached him, adding that he did not try to run or hide. The details mentioned in the lawsuit are backed up by body camera video obtained by the Civil Rights Corps, Duggins said. She said she couldn’t share video of his arrest because of Ramos’ pending criminal case.

Ramos’ bond was originally set at $17,500 but was later reduced to $10,000. He is currently free on bond. His next court date is in September.

The three officers Ramos is accused of assaulting — Jennifer Gilbreath, Hallie Smith and Fredrick Morrison — are defendants in the lawsuit. Also sued were officers Scott Erwin, whom the lawsuit identifies as the first officer to touch him, and Gino Dago, who allegedly helped remove Ramos from the car to restrain him.

Attorneys haven’t identified all of the police officers who were at the arrest, Duggins said.

Warnings and bans

In recent decades, the use of leg restraints by police has become a topic of focus among justice reform advocates, who say the practice is potentially deadly. A 2021 investigation by the Marshall Project and NBC News found that at least 23 people had died of suffocation since 2010 after being hogtied during their arrest.

The same report, which is cited in the lawsuit, says police departments have been warned about the dangers of hogtying arrestees going back to 1995, when the U.S. Department of Justice issued a bulletin instructing police on how to prevent deaths in custody.

Some cities, including New York and Los Angeles, have bans on hogtying, according to the report. The Houston Police Department’s general orders refer to hogtying as interlocking, one of many terms used for the practice. Interlocking is to be used only by officers trained in the technique, according to the orders.

Houston police officials have previously defended their using of interlocking devices. The issue was at the center of a lawsuit after the 1994 death of Darryl Robinson, a 37-year-old man who died two days after he had been restrained after a disturbance at a Dillard’s department store.

Robinson’s family sued deputies, police officers and an assistant manager at the department store for wrongful death. A jury awarded them $800,000. Only the department store was found responsible for the damages because the jury found the officers involved were either working for the store or acting in good faith at the time of Robinson’s arrest.

It’s unclear if the officers who arrested Ramos were trained on the technique.

The lawsuit was assigned to U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison. The first hearing date for the case is scheduled for Oct. 13.