A federal lawsuit has been filed against the Fayette County Sheriff’s office and the Ohio State Highway Patrol for accusations of using excessive force.
According to the lawsuit, a traffic stop happened in May 2013 along 1-71 near Wilmington. The alleged victim claims Deputy Clint Sines deliberately deployed a Taser twice, causing him to lose vision in his right eye and that the trooper did nothing to stop him.
The lawsuit was filed in early April which claims Sines “had no basis to use force” – not once, but twice against Matthew David Kelly.
During the traffic stop, Ohio State Highway Patrol Trooper Bryan Cook arrested the driver of the truck for drunken driving. Kelly was a passenger in the vehicle and asleep. Cook made several attempts to wake him up.
Kelly is seen in the dash cam video waving his arms and becoming tangled in a locked seatbelt.
Deputy Sines ran to the passenger side and ordered Kelly out of the vehicle.
According to the victim, he was restrained by his seatbelt.
The dashcam video shows Sines made several attempts to pull him out, while the victim was falling out of the truck.
Sines lost his grip of Kelly’s sweatshirt and then fired his Taser. A taser prong struck Kelly in his right eye.
“Get on the ground, get on the ground, now, get on the ground, I’ll do it again, get on the ground,” Deputy Sines yelled at Kelly.
Kelly stood there with his hands on his head.
The video shows Sines activated the Taser for a second time, and according to the lawsuit, “sent a second surge of high voltage electricity into Mr. Kelly’s eye.”
Both Trooper Cook and Deputy Sines then realized that Kelly was still buckled in. He was eventually freed from the seatbelt and complied with the orders.
The lawsuit claims the Taser prong remained embedded in his right eye.
In the video, Kelly’s eye is swollen shut.
“My eye hurts,” Kelly told them.
Fayette County EMS Paramedics later transported him to the hospital for surgery, where he almost lost vision in his eye.
Fayette County Sheriff Vernon Stanforth told WBNS that, “Deputy Sines was not reprimanded for these allegations. I thoroughly reviewed the video and believe he acted within policy.”
According to WBNS, Deputy Sines’ personnel file had several accolades, there were also reprimands for unprofessional conduct and failure to perform his duties.
The lawsuit is ongoing in federal court.