DEMDG3 Equipment belt of an American uniformed Police Office showing his gun and baton, Colorado, USA Photograph: Alamy
A man shot and and shocked with a police Taser inside a hospital room while suffering a mental health crisis has filed a lawsuit alleging negligence, excessive force and fabrication of evidence.
Alan Pean, who has a history of bipolar disorder and anxiety, felt he was becoming manic and drove to St Joseph medical center in downtown Houston on 26 August last year. He crashed his car outside the building but was not seriously hurt. He was admitted for overnight observation by emergency department staff and was set to be discharged the following morning.
According to the lawsuit, at around 10.45am he became “disoriented and confused” and left his room three times while naked. A nurse called hospital security and two off-duty uniformed Houston police officers working second jobs, Oscar Ortega and Roggie Law, arrived.
“From the time they entered the room, until after the shooting, Alan remained naked and unarmed,” the district court filing states. It alleges that within 150 seconds of encountering Pean, one officer used a Taser on him and another shot him at close range, the bullet entering the centre of his chest and narrowly missing vital organs.
One of the officers then handcuffed the bleeding man as he lay on the floor, the lawsuit adds. Rather than immediately alert hospital staff, they used their radios to contact other officers, and when Pean’s treating physician arrived he found him on the floor surrounded by more than a dozen officers and covered by a drape, with no one attempting to give first-aid.
The suit also alleges that the doctor had to ask “multiple times” for the handcuffs to be removed so Pean could be treated. He was taken to intensive care and discharged on 3 September.
The 27-year-old was a student at the time. He filed the lawsuit on Tuesday against defendants including the hospital, the city of Houston and four officers, and is seeking damages. “He’s suffered tremendous mental anguish and continuing emotional, physical, psychological injuries,” said Joe Melugin, one of his attorneys.
A spokeswoman for the city of Houston said: “We are reserving comment due to the pending litigation.” The hospital did not return a request for comment.
The day after the shooting, Pean was charged with two counts of aggravated assault on a public servant and shackled to his hospital bed, with visitations severely restricted. Officers said he attacked them with a tray table, a piece of furniture, a wall fixture and his hands.
Nearly four months later, Pean, by now living in New York, was charged with reckless driving stemming from the car accident. In March a Harris County grand jury opted not to indict him on the assault charges and the reckless driving charge was dismissed by a court.
The suit alleges that in a bid to justify their actions, officers concocted the assault claim and spuriously filed the reckless driving charge after they were frustrated in their plan to charge Pean with DWI by blood tests that showed he had no alcohol in his system.
It accuses the hospital of failing to establish adequate training or policies for security personnel dealing with “the confused, the mentally ill, the disoriented, and other troubled or impaired people” and claims the city of Houston allows its officers “to shoot with impunity, finding all intentional officer-involved shootings to be justified”.
All of the more than 150 intentional shootings by Houston police since 2010 that caused injuries or deaths have been ruled justified, the Houston Chronicle reported this month. The officers in Pean’s case were cleared by an internal police department investigation.
“No one in the city can recall the last time a shooting, if ever, was determined to be unjustified,” Melugin said. He said he hopes the lawsuit will lead to reforms so the city and hospitals “may get to where no one else has to go through something like this”.
