A former 3rd Congressional District candidate who was acquitted last year of assaulting his wife has filed a lawsuit against Clark County, alleging wrongful arrest.
The three-paragraph lawsuit was filed Oct. 8 in Clark County Superior Court by David Hedrick, who is acting as his own attorney.
The 33-year-old Camas man was acquitted in February 2011 by a Clark County District Court jury of a fourth-degree assault charge.
In the petition, Hedrick alleges a Clark County sheriff’s deputy and two Camas police officers violated his civil rights when they arrested him on suspicion of assaulting his wife.
Hedrick claims the officers “committed false arrest and used excessive force when they arrested (him) for no legal reason.”
Hedrick seeks $500,000 “or more to be proven at trial and all other relief allowed by law to include attorney’s fees and taxable costs,” according to his lawsuit.
Clark County Chief Civil Deputy Prosecutor Bronson Potter said of Hedrick’s petition: “It’s not like any lawsuit I’ve ever seen.”
Potter noted that Hedrick failed to name the defendants and failed to serve the county with papers — not to mention that the lawsuit is very brief in terms of facts.
“If he was a lawyer, he’d be sued for malpractice,” Potter said.
Hedrick ran a visible, though unsuccessful, campaign for Congress in November 2010. The Republican candidate finished third in the August primary election behind Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler and Democrat Denny Heck.
At the Feb. 18, 2011, trial, a Clark County District Court jury rendered a not-guilty verdict after hearing Megan Hedrick testify that her husband never assaulted her. Instead, she said that she slapped her husband on the wrist and swung a folding chair at him during an argument.
She placed a 911 call on Oct. 9, 2010, accusing her husband of hitting her twice in the head. But once the deputy arrived on scene, she gave inconsistent statements, first saying her husband had only hit her once and later recanting all allegations.
Washington law mandates that law enforcement officers make an arrest if they respond to an active domestic violence incident.
