TEXARKANA, Texas–A man who lost vision in one eye after taking a close-range hit from a policeman’s pepper spray gun in 2019 has agreed to a settlement in a federal lawsuit against the City of Texarkana.
A joint notice of settlement was filed in a Texas federal court Wednesday by Daquan Huey – who is now 21 but was 17 when his left eye was blinded – with the City of Texarkana, Texas, and Texarkana Texas Police Dept. officer Scott Lillis. Huey was found not guilty of resisting arrest by a Bowie County jury in March of this year in connection with the Jan. 27, 2019, incident.
Lillis was among the officers who responded to a call about a large crowd fighting in the Brookwood Drive area of Texarkana on Jan. 27, 2019. Lillis claimed Huey knew he was being detained by a police officer when he pulled the trigger on his JPX pepper spray gun and struck the teen’s face at close range.
But Huey claimed he was backing away from a person he thought would attack him when Lillis grabbed him from behind, his defense attorney said in a March interview with TXK Today. Texarkana lawyer Josh Potter said at the time of the acquittal that Huey couldn’t have known it was a police officer and not one of roughly 80 others present at the scene when he was approached and that he only learned it was law enforcement after he’d been struck.
Huey’s mother, Miracle Farr, launched the federal civil rights lawsuit about a month after Huey was injured.
The case docket notes that U.S. District Judge Robert Schroeder III put the case on hold Wednesday at the request of both sides. If a final settlement agreement is signed by the parties and approved by Judge Schroeder, the case is likely to be dismissed.
