A former Vancouver man says the city violated his civil rights when he was arrested after openly carrying an assault-style rifle near Big Al’s bowling alley, and he’s suing the city in federal court.
Vancouver police officers arrested Mack E. Worley III, 34, who court documents say now lives in Kentucky, after 7 p.m. June 29, 2013.
According to a probable cause statement filed in District Court at the time, officers were called to Southeast 164th Avenue after receiving multiple reports of a man with a long gun walking around and entering businesses.
In his suit, filed in federal court June 29, Worley said he had an AR-15-style rifle slung over his shoulder and a cellphone in his hand, recording video.
He said he entered a Burgerville and bought a Sprite.
Court records say officers later caught up with Worley near Big Al’s, where security staff there asked for Worley to be removed from the property and issued a trespass warning.
After being told to leave, Worley went back on the property, police said, and then he was arrested.
Worley, in his federal court filing, and the police both say he did not enter Big Al’s, but was on the property. Their accounts differ in that Worley contends none of the people he encountered was alarmed by his weapon.
He says a young woman asked why he was carrying a rifle, and he “responded that he was exercising his constitutional rights to open carry and that he believed that it was important for self-defense and the defense of others.”
Worley was arrested on suspicion of second-degree criminal trespassing and for unlawful handling or display of a weapon.
In the federal court filing, Worley also describes an officer using a loudspeaker to tell him to put up his hands, and how multiple officers converged on him with weapons drawn.
Worley says he politely declined to show identification to police or to put down his cellphone. He says that after handing over his rifle, officers tossed each round, individually, on the ground next to his gun.
Officers told him to stay off Big Al’s property. In his filing, Worley says he went on the sidewalk toward his car, which was in the direction of officers.
Worley says he explained as much, but an officer told him not to approach with a weapon. Then the officers charged back at him with guns drawn, placing him under arrest.
A representative of the Vancouver City Attorney’s office said the city doesn’t comment on pending litigation.
Worley stood trial in Clark County District Court in June 2014. A jury found him guilty of unlawful display of a weapon, and he was given a deferred sentence and ordered to serve a year of probation. The trespassing charge was dismissed, according to court documents.
Worley appealed to Clark County Superior Court, and Judge Scott Collier in August 2015 overturned his conviction.
Collier said he wrestled with how to rule, but decided the evidence was ultimately insufficient for the conviction, according to court transcripts.
“Boiling this down, this jury made an emotional reaction to the situation. And I understand that,” he said.
“I think he’s actually doing more harm to the rights that he’s trying to protect. But as the law stands here today, I need to protect that constitutional right he has and am doing so reluctantly,” Collier added.
In his federal suit, Worley alleges the police’s seizure of his gun was unlawful, and their search and his arrest violated his rights under the state and U.S. constitutions, and that he was arrested and imprisoned falsely.
Worley’s suit names the city and 11 Vancouver police officers as defendants.
He’s asking for compensatory and punitive damages to be determined by a jury at trial.
Worley is represented by Spencer D. Freeman of Freeman Law Firm in Tacoma.
