By Kelli Smith and Aria Jones
A man is suing several Dallas police officers for a 2021 arrest in which he says they used excessive force after mistaking him for a violent crime suspect with a similar name.
Silvester Hayes alleged in a federal lawsuit filed last week that officers Walter Paul Guab, Holly Harris and about eight others, whose names weren’t disclosed, kicked, punched and tased him, and dislocated his arm before realizing they had the wrong man. His arm injury has caused him “ongoing pain and mobility issues,” the lawsuit says.
“I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat because I was thinking about the way I was treated,” Hayes said in an interview with The Dallas Morning News. “It was traumatizing.”
The 27-year-old Black security guard from south Oak Cliff said police racially profiled him when they pulled him over on Oct. 16, 2021, as he drove to pick up breakfast — French toast and bacon — for his four young children. 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 the lawsuit.
Hayes, who said the arrest wreaked havoc on his life, is seeking a trial by jury and an unspecified amount in compensation, including damages for his injuries and punishment for the officers’ conduct.
Dallas police declined to comment about the allegations, but said Guab is in the tactical and special operations bureau and Harris is assigned to patrol. The department’s spokespeople declined to say whether the incident was investigated internally. The city of Dallas also declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.
Hayes’ attorneys at the Robinius, Espinosa & Wietzel law firm provided The News with police body-camera footage from various officers. It’s unclear what other footage exists, if any. Dallas police declined to release the body-camera footage, instead telling a reporter to file an open records request.
According to the lawsuit, Hayes gave the officers his driver’s license, and Harris “erroneously” told Guab that Hayes was a wanted man without checking his license on the computer in her police cruiser. Guab didn’t verify the information, and instead “marched” to Hayes’ driver’s side window and, without explanation, reached inside to open the door, the lawsuit says.
Hayes, “alarmed by this sudden escalation,” demanded police tell him what was happening but wasn’t given an explanation, according to the lawsuit. The situation escalated as several unnamed officers arrived in a “rush to join the fight.”
Hayes told Guab he had a registered handgun in the vehicle, the lawsuit said, and body-camera footage shows one or more of the other officers who arrived later yelling “Gun!” as Hayes is pulled out of the car near the intersection of East Overton Road and Southern Oaks Boulevard. According to the lawsuit, Hayes begged for his life and pleaded for help from bystanders but police seemed to ignore him or became more violent as he cried out.
Hayes was arrested on charges of resisting arrest and unlawful possession of a firearm, both of which were later dismissed, according to court records. The lawsuit says after Hayes’ arrest, one or more officers are heard “justifying” the violence, falsely accusing Hayes of being a felon and “stating that there must be something to get him on.”
Hayes said he gave police his ID and everything they asked for to avoid escalating the situation, but officers opened his door aggressively.
“All I could think about was my kids,” Hayes said. “To think that I was just going to go get something to eat for them, and for that day to turn out how it did, it was definitely terrifying.”
Hayes was jailed for multiple days, according to the lawsuit. When he got home, he wanted to tell his kids, all under the age of 6, that something happened that could’ve taken him from them. But he said he didn’t want them to grow up terrified of police.
Hayes said he was born and raised in Dallas and played football at South Oak Cliff High School, which put him in the sights of recruiters from various universities. He said he helps out in the community and mentors kids in the neighborhood to guide them away from trouble.
“I was a natural-born leader,” Hayes said. “So it’s just crazy for me … to run into law enforcement and get handled like that — like I was a menace to society.”
Hayes said he had his life in order before the charges were filed — his bills were on auto-pay and his kids “didn’t want for anything.” But after the charges, he said he lost his security job, and for over a year struggled to find another. He lost his car and home and had to stay with relatives. The kids went to live with their mother.
After the charges were dismissed in December 2022, he said he began to piece together his life again but felt he was “playing catch-up” and had to find a place to stay and a new mode of transportation.
“It was kind of rough on me and my kids,” Hayes said. “From this whole situation, it kind of went to a downward spiral … as far as me trying to keep my ducks in a row.”
Body-camera footage
The footage provided to The News 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 systems.
Guab tells Hayes to get out of his car as Hayes demands to know why he is being detained. Guab opens Hayes’ car door, and as other officers arrive, police pull Hayes out and he falls on the street.
“What the f—?” he yells while he’s facedown. The officers tell him to stop resisting, and Hayes appears to yell about an officer’s footon his neck.
Hayes repeatedly asks, “What am I being detained for?” as officers restrain him. One officer replies, “If you let us tell you, we’ll tell you. Shut up!”
Hayes screams for help and rolls over, then is turned on his stomach. Officers tell him to relax, and the footage shows an officer holding down his leg as Hayes yells, “Y’all hurting me!”
Officers tell him to get up, and the footage shows Hayes standing, handcuffed, as he continues to yell for help and scream that police are hurting him.
“What am I being detained for?” he yells moments later and someone replies, “a family violence warrant.” An officer opens the back of a police cruiser and officers tell him to get in the car. Hayes continues to stand outside the car and says police are hurting him as at least four officers surround him.
An officer pushes Hayes’ back against the car, and appears to grab his neck and push his head down while telling him to get in the car. A moment later, Hayes falls to the ground and an officer appears to kneel on or near his neck. Others hover over him and hold him down. “While he’s down, search him,” one officer says.
Guab appears toleave to get Hayes’ gun in his car, and the officer near Hayes’ neck yells, “Stop! You’re getting this because you’re acting this way.”
“My [N-word],” Hayes says, ending the word with an “a.” The officer, who appears to be white, replies “This is 100% and I’m not your [N-word], OK? This is you acting this way.” The officer said the whole word.
Another angle shows the officer near Hayes’ neck holding Hayes’ head against the curb. “Bro you are pressing —” Hayes says, and the officer yells, “I know I’m pressing your pressure point. Because you’re acting stupid.”
“I’m a very intelligent Black man,” Hayes says while the officer presses his face against the ground. “Stop!” the officer replies. “I don’t care. Right now, you’re acting stupid.”
A different officer zip-ties Hayes’ ankles. Hayes nearly collapses as officers stand him up, then says “I can’t even get up, man.” An officer replies, “Get in the f—ing car.”
Hayes told The News he gave the officers his license and registration without fuss to avoid escalation. He added he thought about the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer and other “countless times” where Black men get “shot down in cold blood for nothing.”
“I felt like the only thing I could do to stop them from possibly shooting me was yelling for help,” Hayes said.
Hayes said he tries to stay away from watching the body-camera footage because it’s traumatic, but at times he’ll replay it to remember. He said he feels “a little bit of anger” still, but tries not to dwell on it.
“I would love for this to never happen to anyone ever again, because this whole situation could be life-altering for anyone,” Hayes said. “When you’ve had knees and a police officer’s foot into the back of your neck, and your head has been pushed into the concrete, I think that can be traumatizing for anyone.”
Mistaken identity
Another body-camera clip shows Harris holding a driver’s license. “F— though. It may not be him,” she says quietly to another officer, then presses on a computer in a police cruiser. Other footage shows an officer approaching a cop in a police car who says, “Do you have it?”
The officer replies, “Yeah, it’s the third,” then says, “F—.”
In other footage, an officer tells Hayes he doesn’t know the full story, but “there is another Silvester Hayes, right, so, give me a second, right, and that Silvester Hayes does have a warrant.”
“I’m the third, man,” Hayes replies. “Silvester Hayes III.”
The footage shows Hayes, who appears to be crying, yelling from inside a police cruiser about how his kids are hungry and he’s not going to feed them. He says he was told the reason he was pulled over was that he failed to signal at a stop sign.
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.
“With everything that’s going on right now, why would I pull a gun, man?” Hayes says. “I’m fighting for my life, man, I got four babies at the house.”
“I do apologize,” the officer replies. “If you feel like they roughed you up or whatever, I do apologize.”
Another body-camera clip shows the officer who was near Hayes’ neck appear to say, “I just hope he has a felony, man. I will gladly participate …”
A different clip shows an officer, who appears to be a supervisor, arrive and walk over to Guab and Harris, who recount why they first believed Hayes was the family violence suspect. Guab says they were searching license plates, and ran Hayes’ as he drove by. Harris typed Hayes’ name into a police system, and it “pops up red,” Guab says, which typically means there’s a warrant.
They later see Hayes’ car again and “catch up to him,” Guab says. Hayes failed to signal within 100 feet of the stop sign, Guab says, so he pulled him over and handed his ID to Harris, who saw the name and said that’s the name on the warrant.
Texas transportation code spells out that a driver must signal “continuously” within “the last 100 feet of movement” before their turn.
As the supervisor asks about the family violence warrant, Harris says Hayes “does have tickets,” appearing to reference speeding tickets Hayes told police he had.
Guab says Hayes was “already acting weird” when they spoke to him.
“We tried to get him out of the car and the fight was on,” Guab says.
He says Hayes had a gun in his pocket and as they tried to get Hayes out of the car, another officer spotted the gun.
The group talks about what charges Hayes could face.
“If he resisted, he resisted, you know what I’m saying?” the supervisor says. “So we got him on that, right? So then we’re good.”
Flashbacks, PTSD
Hayes said he initially wanted to be a Dallas police officer, but the arrest changed the trajectory of his life.
“I can’t see myself working for someone who can’t hold themselves accountable or run into a problem and handle it effectively,” Hayes said.
Even two years after the incident, Hayes said he has flashbacks. When he sees police, he said, he experiences a nervous feeling, like post-traumatic stress disorder, and his palms start sweating.
Hayes said he would like to move from his neighborhood rather than risk coming across the same officers he encountered in the incident. But he said he can’t because he’s still recovering.
“I ended up running into that situation, ended up losing my job and losing my place to stay and stuff like that over something that could have been a simple traffic stop,” Hayes said.
This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.
