Worker accused of masturbating in Tulane office sues university after campus police shot him
New Orleans LA Sept 22 2020
A former Tulane contract worker is suing the university because campus police shot him while trying to arrest him for allegedly masturbating in an office and forcing a co-worker to watch.
Taivon Aples alleges that Tulane subjected him to excessive force and therefore violated his civil rights, though campus police say an officer only opened fire after Aples began driving a car toward the cops.
In a lawsuit filed Sept. 8 in U.S. District Court, Aples demands damages for pain and suffering, mental anguish and emotional distress, among other things.
A Tulane spokesperson declined comment on the case Saturday, citing a policy against discussing pending legal matters while also noting that Aples faces a number of criminal charges stemming from the encounter in question. Sodexo, the dining services contractor that employed Aples at the university, also declined comment for similar reasons.
Campus police say Aples, 28, arrived at the Lavin-Bernick Center on Aug. 23, 2019, and entered Sodexo’s second-floor office suite. He told an employee there he was waiting for a paycheck.
The employee walked to his own office but realized Aples had followed him. Aples exposed himself and started masturbating, at which point the employee picked up a telephone to call police, the police said. Aples told the employee not to “do anything,” and the employee hung up, fearing Aples would attack him, police said. Police alleged that Aples continued masturbating and later left.
Police said they identified Aples through Sodexo’s human resources information and surveillance video recordings that showed him arriving at the office. They obtained a warrant to arrest him but didn’t execute it for more than two weeks.
That happened after Sodexo arranged for Aples to pick up “his last paycheck” and undergo “an exit interview” on Sept. 6, 2019, according to the lawsuit. Aples’ suit, filed by attorneys George McGregor and Timothy Yazbeck, said he told Sodexo he would arrive in a white sedan with his young son accompanying him.
He picked up his paycheck and was preparing to leave when an unmarked, black truck blocked him in the 2900 block of Ben Weiner Drive on the edge of campus. Several police officers with guns drawn exited the truck and surrounded Aples’ car as he reversed between the truck and a curb, the campus police wrote in Criminal District Court records. Aples’ suit says he put the vehicle in forward gear after the officers began using their guns to try to break his window.
One of the officers shot a number of bullets into Aples’ car, striking him in the abdomen. Aples says his son, who was not hit, was clearly visible when the officer opened fire.
Aples managed to drive off the campus but collided with another motorist less than a mile away at Neron Place and Short Street. A third, uninvolved motorist passing the scene of the crash drove Aples and the child to Ochsner Medical Center in Old Jefferson, where Aples underwent emergency surgery.
After he was discharged from the hospital, police jailed him both in the alleged masturbation episode and the campus police melee. The district attorney’s office later charged him with aggravated assault with a motor vehicle upon police, resisting officers with force, obscenity and simple assault.
He has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial while out on a $14,500 bond.
Besides suing Tulane, Aples names as defendants in his suit the campus police chief, five police officers and Sodexo. The suit accuses the officers of haphazardly trying to ambush him with their chief’s blessing, despite knowing it could endanger Aples’ son.
In a separate case, Aples has pleaded not guilty to charges that he plotted to smuggle drugs into New Orleans’ jail while he was detained there on counts of illegal gun and drug possession. Earl Truvia, who transformed himself into a paralegal for defense attorneys after spending almost three decades in the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola on a murder conviction that was later overturned, pleaded guilty in 2018 to trying to deliver drugs to Aples and another New Orleans jail inmate when Truvia visited the lockup.
