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Downton Abbey tea and discussion at Wyoming Free Library

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MMI competed at the Pennsylvania Bar Association Mock Trial at the Luzerne County Courthouse

<p>A Wilkes-Barre woman has alleged she was assaulted and threatened by city police as she chided officers for making fun of her husband&#8217;s stuttering while they responded to a parking complaint by a neighbor.</p><p>Dawn Zavec and her juvenile daughter, identified as M.Z., sued the officers and the city, accusing police of illegally entering her Weston Lane home in 2014 and beating and injuring her.</p><p>The city has a policy of not commenting on pending litigation.</p><p>In the civil suit filed Thursday in federal court in Scranton, Zavec identified officers Robert Collins and Brian Gist as her attackers. She is seeking unspecified damages and a jury trial for alleged violations of her constitutional rights.</p><p>The suit alleges a routine police call the night of Nov. 10, 2014 turned into a melee involving the two officers, Zavec, her husband Joseph and daughter.</p><p>Only Joseph Zavec, who is not part of the suit, was arrested. He was charged with terroristic threats, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and defiant trespass. All but the disorderly conduct charge was dismissed. He pleaded guilty to the summary offense and paid $363 in fines.</p><p>The suit differed from the version of events police detailed in their report.</p><p>Police said Joseph Zavec instigated the fight with the officers, first standing behind a screen door and calling them names and then stepping onto the porch and lunging at them. The officers attempted to arrest him but he resisted and stopped after he was taken to the ground, police said.</p><p>But, according to the suit:</p><p>Joseph Zavec never left the house and directed his wife to go outside with the officers to show them where he parked. While outside, she held an ice pack to her stomach to numb the injection site where she had just administered medication prescribed for her multiple sclerosis. Gist asked her about the ice pack.</p><p>The officers looked at Joseph Zavec&#8217;s vehicle and told him his window tints and tires were illegal. Zavec, a licensed vehicle safety inspector in Pennsylvania, disagreed with the officers. As Zavec, who has a speech impediment, spoke to the officers, he stuttered and they mocked and ridiculed him.</p><p>The Zavecs&#8217; 11-year-old daughter heard the officers, and her mother went to the door. She asked if her husband was under arrest and they replied he was not. She asked them to leave, but they refused and continued to mock her husband&#8217;s stuttering, prompting him to use inappropriate language to Collins.</p><p>After Dawn Zavec told the officers it was &#8220;not nice to make fun&#8221; of her husband, Collins ran into the house and tackled her. Pinned to the living room floor, she cried that it was hurting her and begged the officer to stop.</p><p>One of the officers stepped on the spot where Zavec had given herself an injection and Collins put his knees in her eyes. Her daughter, who was watching, screamed, &#8220;Get off my mommy.&#8221; Her husband told them to stop because they were going to &#8220;kill&#8221; her. As Dawn Zavec got up from the floor, the officer turned to her husband and seized him, taking him to the floor and handcuffing him.</p><p>Dawn Zavec yelled to police to stop because her husband also has medical conditions, but Collins pulled his Taser from his holster and, with his finger on the trigger, pointed it at her, pulling her head back by her hair.</p><p>The young girl tried to assist and Gist threw her against a wall, breaking a hot wax warmer that dripped onto her back. In the midst of the altercation, the family&#8217;s puppy broke free of its crate and Collins pulled out his firearm and threatened to shoot it.</p><p>Dawn Zavec&#8217;s mother arrived. When she and her friend asked Collins what was going on, he threatened to use his Taser on them. A neighbor called an ambulance for Dawn Zavec and police left with her husband before it arrived.</p><p>The suit alleges the officers&#8217; conduct constituted an unreasonable seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment and that they committed 14th Amendment due process violations. Furthermore, because of her disability, police should not have used force on her and the city failed to train the officers to deal with people with disabilities.</p><style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Jerry Lynott</p><p>jlynott@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Jerry Lynott at 570-991-6120 or on Twitter @TLJerryLynott.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Civil suit filed against Wilkes-Barre and police