A lawsuit filed Friday alleges Chattanooga Police Department officers held a man at gunpoint after entering his home without a warrant and subsequently misplaced his internal affairs complaint.
Dale Edmonds, 57, returned home from the hospital on Feb. 14, 2018, three days after a family member shot him in the right shoulder, and met with Department of Child Services alongside his housemate, Alinda, around 8 p.m., the suit says. While one DCS agent met with them inside, another waited outside in a car.
Around the same time, the suit says, officers Cody Thomas, Jason Clemons, James Elliott, Rick Van Ness and Stephen Bulkley went to the home after a neighbor called 911 and said “someone was seated in a black car” in Edmonds’ driveway.
Though the DCS agent in that car told the officers why the agency was there, the suit says, three of the officers opened the back kitchen door without a warrant and drew their guns on Edmonds.
Edmonds said he lived in the home and couldn’t raise both his hands because he’d recently been shot, the suit says. Officer Thomas, the suit says, “forced Dale to raise his severely injured arm and manhandled Dale into the living room.” The officers then ordered him, Alinda Edmonds and the DCS agent outside at gunpoint and left several minutes later after realizing their mistake, the suit says.