A North Carolina man who says he was having a diabetic emergency when he was beaten, punched, and tased by Spruce Pine Police Department officers in a Walmart parking lot outside Asheville has filed a sweeping federal civil rights lawsuit against the town and its officers.
Dillon Ledford’s 58-page federal complaint, filed on June 5, names three officers — Capt. Michael Hollifield, Officer Michael Sale, and Officer Dalton Mace — accusing them of excessive force and failure to render medical aid during his February arrest.
Moments before the aggressive episode, Walmart employees had called 911 for a welfare check because Ledford had been sitting in his parked car for more than 40 minutes and appeared unresponsive.
Store employees told dispatch they were calling for medical help or a welfare check, not to report a crime. Still, the officers showed up ready for a confrontation, according to the lawsuit.
The complaint also faults the town of Spruce Pine and Police Chief Kasey Cook for failing to train officers to recognize medical distress and for operating without updated Use of Force policies.
Surveillance video from the Feb. 16 incident, obtained by ABC affiliate News 13, shows Ledford parked in the Walmart pickup area after entering and exiting the store. There were no reports of Ledford having done anything wrong.
Nearly 40 minutes later, Walmart staff called 911 for a welfare check, describing Ledford as unresponsive, twitching, and having “big buggy eyes.” Within 12 minutes, three officers arrived, forcibly pulled Ledford from his car, struck him multiple times, and used a taser. It’s not clear what sparked the use of force, or whether Ledford had done something to make the officers feel threatened during what was a clear medical emergency.
Ledford’s girlfriend, Leslie McIntosh, said he had called her earlier to say his blood sugar was low. “He has no recollection of what actually happened, just bits and pieces, small things,” she said.
According to the lawsuit, the officers “struck, hit, and punched Ledford, who was in diabetic shock.” It further alleges they failed to recognize the emergency and never called for paramedics. Instead, they dragged him from his car and pinned him on his stomach for more than a minute while he was handcuffed — raising concerns about positional asphyxia.
The legal action invokes a newer provision of federal law — “bystander liability for excessive force” — arguing that each officer had the responsibility to intervene. Hollifield is named as a bystander to the striking, Sale as a bystander to the tasing, and Mace as a bystander to both. The complaint argues that none of them attempted to stop the others or report the force to Chief Cook.
Ledford’s family has also raised questions about the use of force and the department’s transparency.
Last summer, local media outlet WLOS attempted to review the officers’ statements but only received heavily redacted reports that were “functionally useless,” said Seth Stoughton, a police use-of-force expert and faculty director at the University of South Carolina’s Excellence in Policing program.
Stoughton reviewed the footage for WLOS and expressed serious concern. “They are just brute-forcing the guy out of the car, which is not how you’re supposed to do a vehicle extraction,” he said. “Whoa, those are punches. Yeah, that’s a lot of punches, actually.”
Stoughton also noted that best practices require officers to treat any potential medical emergency as real: “Officers know they’re not doctors… the consequences of treating it like it’s not are potentially fatal.”
Though the State Bureau of Investigation reviewed the case, District Attorney R. Seth Banks ultimately concluded that while the officers’ failure to call for medical help was “concerning,” it did not amount to a criminal offense. The federal lawsuit, however, focuses on potential constitutional violations and is seeking damages and a jury trial.
The town’s attorney responded to the lawsuit by saying, “Once the Town is served a copy of the pleading, it will be reviewed and we will respond accordingly.”
