Spruce Pine Town Manager Daniel Stines released a statement last week about the recent lawsuit filed against the town accusing Spruce Pine police officers of using excessive force.
Dillon Randall Ledford of Marion filed suit against the town, Police Chief Kasey Cook and three officers on June 5, alleging that the officers used excessive force to restrain him when he was undergoing a diabetes-related health crisis on Feb. 16, 2024.
The three responding officers named in the lawsuit are Michael Keith Hollifield, Michael Ethan Sale and Dalton Hunter Mace.
Stines said that the town is reviewing the allegations in the lawsuit.
“The town strongly believes that the officers’ limited use of force against Mr. Ledford was not excessive and was objectively reasonable under the circumstances considering the severity of the crime at issue, the extent to which Mr. Ledford posed a threat to the safety of the officers and others, and Mr. Ledford actively resisting arrest,” Stines said last Wednesday. “The officers were not reasonably aware of Mr. Ledford’s apparent medical condition at the time of the incident.”
The office of District Attorney Seth Banks, based in Boone, investigated the incident where Ledford was detained at the Spruce Pine Walmart in February 2024 and released a report on the investigation in November 2024.
“Law enforcement officers on scene apparently were unaware of Mr. Ledford’s medical condition,” the November DA’s report reads. “While, with the benefit of hindsight, the failure to involve medical personnel to evaluate Mr. Ledford’s condition on scene … is cause for concern, that omission does not rise to the level of a violation of criminal law.”
Accordingly, the DA’s office chose not to pursue criminal charges against the responding officers. The official report from the DA’s office did not address whether or not the responding officers should be disciplined in some way other than criminal prosecution.
“Because the role of the district attorney as defined by the North Carolina Constitution and applicable statues is largely limited to the determination of when to pursue criminal actions, the sole task before this office has been to determine whether any prosecutions should take place based on the conduct of the individuals involved,” the November report reads.