HOUSTON - A former deputy sheriff waited too long to sue Harris County for shortchanging him on backpay, following the 2018 fatal shooting of a man whose wife had drowned two of their children.
Cameron Brewer was removed from active service after shooting Danny Ray Thomas, who was observed with his pants around his ankles banging on the hood of a car on a road in Greenspoint. Video footage showed Thomas was not armed but he continued to advance on Brewer despite repeated attempts to stop, and Brewer said a taser had no effect on him.
Brewer, in a civil lawsuit against him from Thomas' family, said Thomas was experiencing "excited delirium" and "superhuman strength." Brewer shot at him from a distance of four feet in fear that Thomas would take his firearm, he said.
Thomas died from the shot. A toxicology report showed PCP. Brewer was removed from active service but eventually won the wrongful death suit against him and was reinstated by the Harris County Civil Service Commission.
Brewer was owed about $144,000 in backpay but the sides agreed on $123,280.80. In December 2020, he received a check for only $78,621.87 and initially presumed the missing pay was a result of taxes being taken out.
In 2021, Brewer received a Form 1099 that said he was not an employee and the payment was not part of his backpay. The IRS told him no taxes were withheld and that he needed to pay them.
He submitted his tax return in October 2021 without any credit for withheld taxes and with penalties for underpayment. Eight months earlier, he'd asked Harris County why his check was so small but was told the Form 1099 indicated his waiver of his claim to withholdings.
So he sued, but not until May 2023 - more than two years after he received the check and asked Harris County about it. Houston federal judge Andrew Hanen on Sept. 24 found his suit time-barred.
"While the delay in responding, most liberally construed, may constitute concealment, the 'material facts' here are that the taxes were not withheld and the pay was not for backpay which, as admitted by Plaintiff, were apparent from Form 1099," Hanen wrote.
"These facts were not concealed. Thus, any delay in communication with Defendant that occurred after the issuance of Form 1099 cannot be the basis of his equitable estoppel argument."
The statute of limitations on his claim began to run on Feb. 20, 2021, Hanen wrote, the day after he asked Harris County about the discrepancy. David Batton of Houston represented Brewer.
The Thomas family's loss earlier this year at the Fifth Circuit in their case against Brewer was the latest body-blow it has faced. In 2016, Sheborah Thomas admitted she drowned two of her children in a bathtub and hid their bodies in a trash can.
She moved their bodies the next day to underneath a neighbor's house. She told a friend she had killed her children and was ready to leave town.
The children were five and seven years old. Danny Thomas was incarcerated at the time. Sheborah Thomas pleaded guilty in 2023 and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
Danny Thomas' family blamed Sheborah for his mental health issues.