WORCESTER – A Worcester woman alleges in a lawsuit against the city that a plainclothes police officer violated her civil rights when he violently arrested her at a local convenience store seven years ago, when she was 14 years old.
Melissa Montanez alleges in her complaint, filed Sunday in U.S. District Court in Worcester, that William A. Hinson, who was also listed as a defendant, did not identify himself as a city police officer when he directed obscene language at her and her friends before roughly handcuffing her at a Honey Farms store at 353 Grafton St.
Ms. Montanez, who says she suffered a concussion as a result of Mr. Hinson hitting her head on the door of his car as he forced her inside the vehicle, is seeking undisclosed damages, according to the suit.
An eighth-grader in the Worcester schools at the time weighing "no more than 90 pounds," Ms. Montanez claims she went with a 16-year-old female friend to the convenience store on May 2, 2011, where they met a male friend from school. Shortly afterward, Officer Hinson, whom the lawsuit says was dressed in civilian clothes at the time, pulled into the store’s parking lot in an unmarked police vehicle and told them to leave, accusing them of loitering.
When Ms. Montanez and her friends refused, she alleges Mr. Hinson grabbed her male friend by the neck and pinned him against the wall of the store, and again told them to leave. The girls went to the 16-year-old friend’s house, and the girl’s mother told them to go back to the store to purchase an item, the complaint says.
When they went back, they again encountered the same male friend as before, and they all went inside, followed once again by Mr. Hinson, who had also left and returned, according to Ms. Montanez's account. In the store, Officer Hinson allegedly began berating the girls "in an angry and menacing manner … and complained that they had been disrespectful to him earlier in the parking lot," the suit says. Ms. Montanez also alleges Officer Hinson repeatedly used foul language during their interaction, referring to her and her female friend specifically with obscenities.
After completing their purchase, the girls tried to leave the store, but Officer Hinson positioned himself in the way of the exit, according to Ms. Montanez. As she tried to go around him, he grabbed her hair, "dragged Montanez by the hair to a Keno counter inside the store, pinned her there and began pulling hard on her arm and bending her body backwards with a great force as Montanez yelled that he was going to break her back," according to the complaint. While arresting her, he slammed her "repeatedly" against the wall, and later "deliberately slammed her head into the driver’s side door window of his vehicle with such force as to cause her to sustain a concussion," the suit states. Ms. Montanez also alleges Officer Hinson jabbed her female friend in the face with the handcuffs as the 16-year-old was trying to shield her.
Ms. Montanez says in the lawsuit she was charged with assault and battery of a police officer, being a disorderly person, disturbing the peace, trespassing, and resisting arrest. The lawsuit says those charges were later dropped – her case would have been in juvenile court, and thus not open to public view – and she disputes Officer Hinson’s account of the incident as detailed in his official report, which said that a defiant Ms. Montanez berated him as well with obscene language and intentionally bumped him while trying to leave the store.
After being booked at the police station, Ms. Montanez says in lawsuit, she was taken to the hospital by her relatives, and ended up suffering "physical injury, great pain of body and mind and ... incurred reasonable expenses for necessary treatment" as a result of her ordeal.
Her lawsuit blames the Worcester Police Department at the time for cultivating a "policy or custom of indifference to misconduct by police officers by failing to properly investigate complaints of misconduct and to discipline officers who used unreasonable force."
"These policies and customs were the moving force behind Defendant Hinson’s violations of Montanez civil rights," the complaint says. The suit lists seven counts, including violations of U.S.- and state-guaranteed civil rights, assault and battery, malicious prosecution, false arrest, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
According to the suit, Mr. Hinson has since retired from the police force; it does not say what happened to Ms. Montanez, other than that she continues to live in the city.
Ms. Montanez’s attorney, Worcester lawyer Hector Pineiro, could not be reached for comment Monday. In statement provided to the Telegram & Gazette on Friday afternoon, Mike Vigneux, spokesman for City Manager Edward M. Augustus, said the city had not yet been served court papers in the case and "cannot comment on a pending lawsuit."