Silvester Hayes Was Beaten By Cops After Mistaken Identity

Source: Houston Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images

You don’t have to be smart, rational or even remotely reasonable to be a police officer in this country, and that’s a major problem.

According to NBC News, a 27-year-old Black man named Silvester Hayes was attacked, beaten, tased and zip-tied by Dallas police officers back in 2021 over an egregious case of “mistaken identity.”

Hayes is a single father of four and was going to get them food when he was pulled over for “failing to signal at a stop sign.” The lawsuit filed against officers Walter Paul Guab and Holly Harris calls that reasoning “suspicious” and “obviously manufactured.” Hayes said that he gave Guab and Harris his license and was forthcoming in telling them that he was in possession of a legal firearm in his vehicle and that’s when things went left…

Without even running his license through the computer system that provides officers information, Harris took one look at his name, assumed he was a man named “Sylvester” who had an open warrant for domestic violence, and immediately began yanking him out of his vehicle, reports NBC News. 

The lawsuit claims that officers “escalated their aggression” and “manhandled” Hayes to the point where they pulled his arm out of its socket. When more officers arrived on the scene, one of them yelled “Gun!” after seeing the firearm in Hayes’ car, which served to further escalate the violence against him.

When all was said and done,  Officer Harris was reportedly heard saying “F**k, we got the wrong guy.”

According to the lawsuit, this is where the cops added insult to injury and STIL tried to find a way to lay charges on the man they had just wrongly accosted. Police were heard on body camera discussing whether or not Silvester Hayes was a felon. When they confirmed that he was not, an unidentified officer asked about a charge of resisting arrest.

“I don’t know if we’ll be able to put the resisting, because you can’t resist detention,” Officer Guab said per a bodycam video obtained by Law & Crime. 

Hayes was subsequently arrested and charged with resisting arrest and possession of an unlawful weapon. According to the lawsuit, the charges were dropped a year later.

We hope all these bacon-scented “blue lives” are fired and charged with crimes on top of the lawsuits that they are facing.