Palm Coast Man Falsely Arrested Sues Sheriff, Saying Deputies “Did Not Act Reasonably”

Dakota Ward, the 19-year-old Bunnell man falsely arrested in March when his name was confused with that of another with similar but not identical spelling, is suing the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office for more than $15,000. The lawsuit lands on Sheriff Jim Manfre’s desk as he prepares to leave office in less than two weeks, making it what will likely be the newest lawsuit Sheriff-Elect Rick Staly will inherit.

The lawsuit is not a surprise. The Sheriff’s Office got notice on April 11 that it would be forthcoming.

Ward was mistaken for a man a year older, who spells his first name as “Decoda,” who looks significantly different, and with whom the younger Ward has been mistaken for many years, going back to their days in school together. But the March incident was the first time Dakota Ward was arrested by mistake.

Decoda Ward at the time was facing a battery charge and had not shown up in court. A failure-to-appear charge was levied against him, but went to Dakota instead. Deputies showed up to arrest him. He protested. He was arrested anyway. The sheriff’s office would later state in a press release that Ward at the time of his arrest at no time told the arresting deputy “that there might be confusion with De’Coda Ward.” But the victim of the false arrest also said he was being compliant with police, as he had been taught to be, and as police demand when arresting an individual. Resistance can lead to additional charges, such as resisting arrest.

Ward, the complaint states, “was arrested, fingerprinted, had his mug shot taken, and was booked into the Flagler County Inmate Facility against his will with no probable cause.”

Two days after his arrest Liz Williams, a Flagler Beach Police detective and a friend of Ward’s family informed the State Attorney’s office that Ward had been falsely arrested.

Ward’s family retained Josh Davis, the Palm Coast attorney and former assistant state prosecutor, as his lawyer. Davis quickly established with ready records that there’d been a mistake, and that the mistake could have been easily stopped had the deputy involved in the original filing of a charging affidavit against De’Coda Ward properly followed procedures.

Dakota Ward’s arrest, the complaint alleges, “was not reasonable. Flagler County Sheriff’s Office Deputies failed to confirm the identity of [Dakota Ward] by ignoring the description, correct spelling of the suspect’s name, and the address listed for the suspect contained within the original complaint.”

The deputy who had filed the original battery affidavit against De’Coda Ward in December 2015, James Gore, became the subject of an internal affairs investigation was eventually suspended three days without pay and reprimanded for an “unsatisfactory or incompetent performance.” He had been provided De’Coda’s name in the December incident in its correct spelling, but had written it down incorrectly, and followed up by entering Dakota Ward’s name in a police database, thus starting the sequence of events that led to Ward’s false arrest.

The Sheriff’s Office issued an official apology to Ward on April 1, signed by Manfre, who altered some procedures to ensure that mis-identification of individuals doesn’t happen again. The charge against Dakota Ward was dropped and his record scrubbed from the jail’s website, and eventually removed from the court’s website.

De’Coda Ward, meanwhile, was eventually arrested on the battery charge, pleaded guilty in July and sentenced to probation, which he violated when, in September, he was re-arrested on a battery charge and possession of drug paraphernalia. The arresting deputy was Rich Petkovsek, the same deputy who had carried out what turned out to be Dakota Ward’s false arrest (Petkovsek was merely serving the warrant and had no responsibility for the errors that had led to the wrong Ward.) De’Coda Ward was found guilty on both the battery and drug charge and served two months in jail.

Gore is the subject of another ongoing lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Office. It was filed in June by the victim of a car crash with Gore, who was at the wheel of a patrol car in 2013.

But Gore was also the recipient last week of a Sheriff’s Office Lifesaving Award as a result of valorous acts on Sept. 9, when he responded to an incident on Old Dixie Highway and performed CPR on a man who was possibly having a cardiac episode. The man’s family wrote the sheriff’s office to thank Gore for his intervention. The man recovered.

Click to access dakota-ward-v-flagler-sheriff.pdf