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Lawsuit claims Frisco bank employees’ actions were racially motivated
By Ann Marie Shambaugh, Staff Writer
Four people filed a lawsuit today in Dallas County against Wells Fargo Bank over an incident at a Frisco branch that resulted in their detainment in September 2007 after bank employees called police because they thought they looked suspicious and possibly had a gun.
Attorney and state senator Royce West said that bank employees were racially motivated when they called the Frisco Police Department to report that Yvonne Derrill Ewans, an African American, and Saravanan Rathinasabapathy, an Indian, were possibly trying to rob the bank at 4851 Legacy Drive.
“We will ask a jury to decide whether or not Wells Fargo should be held liable for basically ‘banking while black,’” West said.
“It is absolutely clear from everything we reviewed that there was no other factor than race that was used to call the police and state that somebody was committing a robbery,” Attorney Mike Gruber said.
The incident occurred on Sept. 8, 2007, when Ewans and Rathinasabapathy arrived for a pre-arranged meeting with a loan officer to discuss the financing of a car that Rathinasabapathy was purchasing from Ewans. Nithya Saravanan, Rathinasabapathy’s wife, joined them after about 35 minutes with some paperwork.
The lawsuit states that during this time the bank’s lead teller determined that the two men looked suspicious and thought Ewans might have a gun, although it turned out to be a cell phone holder. She contacted the bank’s security personnel, who told her to call Frisco police.
The lawsuit also states that another Wells Fargo employee also spoke with Frisco dispatchers and told them that there was no robbery in progress and that he had not seen a gun. However, he asked for the police department to send a single officer into the bank to “have a presence here that might deter anything.”
FPD said that it was not possible to send in just one officer because of safety concerns. They thought they were responding to a robbery in progress and treated the situation as such.
When police arrived, they surrounded the bank, handcuffed Lewis, and placed her in a police vehicle with her 3-year-old daughter. She provided police with Ewans’ cell phone number, and they called him and asked him to step outside the bank. Police officials said he initially refused.
Ewans said that at first he thought the call was a prank, but he complied with the officer’s orders.
“When I heard the seriousness in his voice, I obeyed what he told me to do,” he said.
Police handcuffed Ewans at gunpoint and had him lie on the ground as they searched for a gun.
The lawsuit states that police officers had Rathinasabapathy and Saravanan lie on the ground handcuffed inside the bank as they continued to investigate the situation.
After the search revealed no weapons or evidence that anyone was planning to rob the bank, police released everyone involved.
West said that the plaintiffs do not plan to file a lawsuit against FPD, because they thought they were responding to a robbery in progress. If future evidence shows that they acted out of line, he said, the plaintiffs may change their minds.
“[The police] are supposed to respond and prepare for the worst, and that’s exactly what the police department did,” West said.
Frisco police spokesman Sgt. Gerald Meadors said that the officers were dispatched for a robbery in progress, and treated the situation as such until everyone was detained to protect the safety of the officers and everyone in the bank.
“The bank employees led us to believe that they were in the middle of a robbery,” he said. “Our officers responded accordingly.”
He also said that the officers saw someone who was not in a bank uniform standing in the drive-through window area, which further aroused their suspicion. The man turned out to be a maintenance worker who was fixing the bank’s vault, but bank employees did not identify him in the 911 call.
A passerby caught the incident on video on his cell phone and quickly posted it on YouTube. Several media outlets also aired the footage, which West said increased Ewans’ public humiliation.
Wells Fargo Assistant Vice President Helen Bow said in a statement that the company apologized directly to Ewans. She also said that the Metroplex has one of the highest bank robbery rates in the country, and that a nearby Wells Fargo had been robbed just months before the incident.
Bow said that there were several factors in this case that caused the employees to be concerned and call the police.
“We stand by our team members’ actions and we will vigorously defend ourselves,” Bow said.
West said that Wells Fargo has not apologized for its employees’ actions, which is one reason why the lawsuit was filed.
“What occurred in [the bank] should not have happened to anyone,” West said.
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