A federal judge tossed a lawsuit by a former security guard who alleged Dallas police officers used excessive force after mistaking him for a family violence suspect.
In a 20-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Karen Gren Scholer argued the officers who detained Silvester Hayes in 2021 were protected by qualified immunity, a legal shield for public officials that even federal judges have difficulty interpreting. She said police had probable cause and the force was justified because Hayes did not use his turn signal and resisted arrest.
Hayes now plans to appeal, saying body-camera footage of the arrest speaks for itself.
“ Everybody’s entitled to their own opinion, but it clearly showed that I was fighting for my life,” Hayes, 29, told The Dallas Morning News in a recent interview. “If I would’ve never yelled out for help, I feel like they would’ve taken my life that day.”
The city of Dallas declined to comment. In court documents, city attorneys argue the arrest was constitutional, the officers did not use excessive force and Hayes misrepresented his resistance to the officers.
Hayes, a Black man from south Oak Cliff, alleged Dallas police racially profiled him when they pulled him over on Oct. 16, 2021, for failing to signal at a stop sign as he drove to pick up breakfast for his four kids. His name is similar to, but spelled differently than, the name of a man wanted at the time on a family violence warrant, according to his lawsuit.
Police saw the name on his ID and pulled him out of his car, according to body-camera footage, which shows Hayes scream for help as officers struggle to restrain him.
Police later realized they had the wrong Hayes, but still jailed him on resisting arrest and unlawful possession of a firearm charges. He has said the arrest wreaked havoc on his life — noting he lost his security job, his car and home. His kids went to live with their mother.
In the late April opinion dismissing his lawsuit, Scholer said police did not shoot a stun gun at, kick, punch or hog-tie Hayes. Scholer wrote that much of the force was used by other officers, not the two named in the lawsuit. She said Hayes “continued to physically struggle” even after he was pulled from his car, which weighed in favor of the officers’ use of force.
“Outside of one officer momentarily grabbing Plaintiff’s throat and possibly hitting Plaintiff in the stomach with his knee, the officers used relatively minor force, even as Plaintiff screamed, resisted restraint, and refused to get in the police car,” Scholer wrote.
Hayes’ attorney Mark Robinius said, “We strongly disagree with the Court‘s ruling and plan to file an appeal.” Dallas police declined to comment on the judge’s decision.
Hayes, whose case went viral after The News first wrote about it in 2023, said he was disappointed to see the judge’s ruling, and he’s still working to pick up the pieces of his life.
“I still remember it like yesterday,” Hayes said. “To be so close to losing my life over something so simple, that‘ll always be traumatizing for me, you know? They almost took me away from my kids, and in that moment, that was the only thing I could think about.”
Body-camera footage
Hayes’ lawsuit names two officers: Walter Paul Guab, now in the Southwest Patrol Division, and Holly Harris, who is now in personnel. Other involved officers were not identified in the suit.
Body-camera footage provided by Hayes’ attorneys shows Hayes in his car telling Guab he was just trying to get his babies something to eat. Hayes gives Guab his ID, which Guab shows Harris. Harris peers at it and says “yeah” without checking the ID in their system.
Guab opens Hayes’ car door, and as other officers arrive, police pull Hayes out. Hayes told Guab he had a registered handgun in the vehicle, the lawsuit said, and footage shows one or more officers yelling “Gun!” as Hayes is pulled out of his car near the intersection of East Overton Road and Southern Oaks Boulevard.
He falls on the street and yells while facedown.
Watch: Security guard says body camera footage shows Dallas police officers used excessive force
Editor’s note: The officer works in an undercover capacity and his face has been blurred at the request of his attorney.
The officers tell him to stop resisting, and Hayes appears to yell about an officer’s foot on his neck. He repeatedly asks, “What am I being detained for?” and an officer replies, “If you let us tell you, we‘ll tell you. Shut up!”
Officers tell him to get up, and the footage shows Hayes standing, handcuffed, as he continues to yell that police are hurting him. Police tell him to get into the back of a police cruiser, and he keeps standing, then falls again to the ground as police continue to restrain him.
Once he’s inside the police vehicle, footage shows officers begin to realize they have the wrong Hayes. Hayes, who appears to be crying, yells about how his kids are hungry and he’s not going to feed them. An officer talks about Hayes’ gun, and Hayes tells him he didn’t pull anything and the gun is registered to him. The officer confirms the gun came back clear and wasn’t stolen.
One clip shows an officer saying, “I just hope he has a felony, man.” While discussing what occurred with other officers, a supervisor says: “If he resisted, he resisted, you know what I’m saying? So we got him on that, right? So then we‘re good.”
The charges police arrested Hayes on — resisting arrest and unlawful possession of a firearm — were dismissed in December 2022. He said he was jailed for days and dislocated his arm. He was traumatized, he said, and recovery has been slow.
“ I’m getting all my ducks in a row and trying to build myself all the way back up,” he told The News last week.
Hayes’ life years later
It‘s unclear whether the officers involved faced an internal probe; the city of Dallas declined to release files related to Hayes’ case to a reporter, appealing the request to the attorney general. The attorney general ruled in the city’s favor not to release the records, citing the litigation.
Hayes now works at a high school and hopes to get into coaching football. He moved from his neighborhood after the arrest, but is still in Dallas. The incident put a stopping point in his career, he said, recalling how he’d wanted to be a Dallas police officer.
Now, Hayes isn’t comfortable calling 911 for help.
Silvester Hayes filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging excessive force against Dallas police
Silvester Hayes filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging excessive force against Dallas police officers who detained him by mistake.
He used to vouch for police when people in his south Oak Cliff neighborhood said cops were bad, Hayes said, but in his case, “different police officers from different walks of life … all contributed to the wrongdoing or the mistake they made towards me.”
“No one stood up for me in that moment,” Hayes said, “after they realized they were wrong.”
He said he felt touched that his story reached so many supportive people after The News wrote about it in 2023, but he was also somewhat embarrassed because it was his most vulnerable moment. People recognized him when he’d venture out, he said.
”I hate that I had to go viral for something like that, but I was happy that my story was able to reach so many people,” he said.
