A man who was
shot after he appeared on A&E’s “The First 48″ talking to Dallas police detectives has filed a lawsuit against the show’s production company.
The man told police that Michael Kenneth Scott called him “a snitch” and shot him and a woman in August in the 4100 block of Metropolitan Avenue. Both the man and the woman survived. Scott is in Dallas County jail as of late Wednesday.
The lawsuit, filed in state district court, seeks more than $1 million from Kirkstall Road Enterprises, which produces “The First 48,” a show about homicide investigations. The complaint alleges that the informant didn’t consent to being on the show in any way.
The company, which is based in New York, did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. The show no longer produces episodes in Dallas.
Attorney Don Tittle said the man didn’t want to talk to police and was unfairly portrayed as a snitch by the company.
“They are trying to make an entertaining reality show and they suggest clearly that he’s a snitch and he came forward on his own to help the officers solve this unsolved murder,” Tittle said. “And they had to know by portraying him that way, they were jeopardizing his safety.”
The show blurred the man out and disguised his voice. But, Tittle wrote in the complaint, the man’s “entire body was visible such that his size, height, skin color, clothing, and mannerisms were visible to the viewer.”
Tittle, who has won multiple six-figure settlements with the city in cases involving police, said the blurring showed the production company knew there was a risk. He said the he may add
A&E to the lawsuit later, but the city likely won’t be a defendant.
Those who knew the man recognized him as the blurry face talking to Dallas Homicide Detective Rick Duggan on the episode. The man and his family received death threats.
The complaint also describes the part of the conversation with Duggan on the show to be “highly edited” and “misleading.” The lawsuit states that the man was not a confidential informant for police.
The man, who has a criminal history himself, told Duggan that he heard the man who killed
Jamaican drug dealer Donovan Reid at his Red Bird home was notorious
AK-47-wielding drug dealer robber “21,” whose real name was Deon Bell. Reid’s home had more $900,000 in cash, a huge stash of marijuana and a ledger showing $28 million in transactions over the years.
Clint Stoker was the source of information, the man said.
Police found Stoker’s fingerprint in Reid’s house and initially booked him into jail on a capital murder charge. But authorities dropped the charge and charged him with burglary instead because they didn’t have enough evidence to make the murder charge stick.
Police also later charged Stoker with retaliation because he threatened the informant after the episode aired. He told the man’s mother “your (expletive) (expletive) son snitched on me. That (expletive) (expletive) owes me and I’m gonna do something to him.”
Shmyron Cooper — who talked to
The Dallas Morning News for a 2014 story about Bell — also allegedly threatened the man on Facebook. He is in Dallas County jail facing a retaliation charge.
Ya got me. I ain't read shyt.
Hope he gets paid