GALVESTON – The City of Sweeny and its police department are accused in a federal lawsuit of using excessive force on a male suspect, per recent Galveston Division of the Southern District of Texas records.
Marcus Bonner filed the suit on Apr. 6, alleging a Sweeny police officer unlawfully assaulted him at A.M. “Chick” Anderson Park on Mother’s Day two years ago.
Bonner explains that Officer Filer approached him and asked him to repeat what he supposedly told another officer in the vicinity.
Filer reportedly then ordered the plaintiff to walk over to his patrol vehicle and place his hands behind his back, as well as told him he was under arrest.
Court papers assert the officer pushed Bonner against his patrol vehicle and threatened to charge the complainant with resisting arrest. The incident in question was captured on Filer’s and two other officers’ body cameras, the original petition says.
Bonner was eventually charged with public intoxication, resisting arrest, and obstruction or retaliation, to which the suit says were dropped at the end of the year.
The defendants fired Filer after the plaintiff lodged a formal complaint against him.
Consequently, Bonner seeks unspecified monetary damages and a jury trial.
He is represented by Marcus L. Stevenson of The Stevenson Law Firm, PC in Pearland.
Galveston Division of the Southern District of Texas Case No. 3:18-CV-0101