Process Server Gets Little to No Support from Police Following Altercation

• November 11, 2013
• by Jessica Manire

If I’d known how this was going to transpire with false allegations, I would have taken the time to take care of this, and just wait [for the police].

Todd Garrett

To most people, process server assault is an unknown issue. However, within the industry, awareness regarding process servers and assault has been on the rise. More and more cases are being reported, such as the case involving process server Steve Hartman. Hartman was arrested while trying to server papers to a Texas judge. Cases like this bring up the issue of the relationship between law enforcement and process servers. Some process servers find receiving police backup while doing their jobs to be difficult and believe they do not receive the support from police that they need to do their jobs safely and justly.

A case involving process server Todd Garrett of Houston, Texas, is unique and also sheds light on the sometimes tumultuous relationship between process servers and law enforcement. On April 30th, 2012, Mr. Garrett went to Shaver Auto Parts to serve papers to the owner of the business, Dalia Batarse. Upon arrival, he spotted the person he believed to be his target. Garrett claims that the target was becoming visibly and audibly agitated and more and more difficult by the minute. She was displaying typical behavior of a person trying to evade service such as refusing to state her full name or show her ID. Convinced this was the intended target, Mr. Garrett served the papers. According to Garrett, as he was leaving, the woman shouted, “You try and take me to court!” Mr. Garrett then walked outside, got into his car and prepared to leave. As Mr. Garrett was backing out of his parking spot, the woman he had just served ran up to his car, opened his car door and threw the papers back at Mr. Garrett.

In a moment of shock, Mr. Garrett got out of his car and pushed the woman to the ground. In an interview with ServeNow, Mr. Garrett said, “I immediately got out and pushed her away from the car, I was freaked out. In the six, seven years I’ve been doing this, I’ve never had anyone open a car door on me”. He explained that he wanted to ensure that she was not carrying any weapons and could not hurt him. When he returned to his car, Mr. Garrett noticed the papers were there and went back into the store and left the papers on the counter. Mr. Garrett says he then left the scene and continued with his day, believing he was in the right and that even though the woman had threatened to call the police, nothing more would come of this confrontation. "The company was listed on the lawsuit, so service was effectuated," Mr. Garrett said.

Three months later, Mr. Garrett received a call from Detective Palos of the Houston Police Department’s Homicide Division. He was informed that there was a case against him. His initial thought was that his fingerprints were found at a homicide scene where he had possibly served papers. Upon realization that he was being accused of assaulting the woman from Shaver Auto Parts, who turned out to be Dolly Nieves, the store manager, Mr. Garrett offered to go to the station immediately and clear up any misconceptions about the case. He had to make an appointment to meet with Detective Palos a week later.

At the Houston Police Station, Mr. Garrett also learned that Ms. Nieves had told police that she had approached his car, tapped on his window and that he had rolled down the window and accepted the papers back from her. She claimed he then got out of his car and pushed her, from behind to the ground while she was walking back into the store. The phone number for Shaver Auto Parts is out of service and therefore ServeNow was also unable to speak with Dolly Nieves. Mr. Garrett revealed that when he conducted a background check on Ms. Nieves, he discovered that she was convicted of cocaine trafficking in the late 1980's and served 15 years in prison. Mr. Garrett told ServeNow that when his lawyer attempted to speak with Ms. Nieves that she was irrational and angry. However, Mr. Garrett’s lawyer declined to comment on this article or her contact with Dolly Nieves.

According to Mr. Garrett, he was treated disrespectfully while at the Houston Police Department and the detective behaved unprofessionally during interrogation. Mr. Garrett says he was not allowed to state his side of the story and that when he attempted to point out holes in Ms. Nieves story the detective got angry and told Mr. Garrett to “stop telling him how to do his job”. Additionally, Mr. Garrett revealed that Detective Palos was accusatory even before the interview started. "Before Detective Palos turned on the tape recorder, he told me that he couldn't believe I thought I could justify what I did," Mr. Garrett told ServeNow. According to Mr. Garrett, Detective Palose said that if Mr. Garrett had been trying to serve him papers, that he, too, would have lied about who he was. "What he did was completely unethical," Mr. Garrett said.

Detective Palos has not returned ServeNow’s phone calls regarding his involvement in the case and specifically, why an assault case was handled by the homicide department. When we asked the front desk the same question, we were told that the arena of assault is a subsidiary of the homicide department and that all major assault cases are handled by the homicide team.

We don’t get the backup from law enforcement that we need. That is something that really needs to be addressed. I don’t think that the law enforcement here is properly trained on how to deal with process servers. I’ve had law enforcement threaten to arrest me for trespassing when I have the right to be on a property.

Todd Garrett

Mr. Garrett has served papers in Illinois, New Jersey, and Texas and is a former police officer and soldier. He says that he had great backup and support from police in Illinois and New Jersey but that in Houston the police seem like they are on a different team than process servers and the like. Mr. Garrett believes process service, “is a dangerous job. We don’t get the backup from law enforcement that we need. That is something that really needs to be addressed. I don’t think that the law enforcement here is properly trained on how to deal with process servers. I’ve had law enforcement threaten to arrest me for trespassing when I have the right to be on a property.”

Mr. Garrett has also experienced waiting for police backup to come to a scene for up to two or three hours, which he states as one of the reasons he did not call the police on April 20th, 2012. He says that his only regret on this serve was not calling the police; “If I’d known how this was going to transpire with false allegations, I would have taken the time to take care of this, and just wait.” After this experience, Mr. Garrett recommends that a process server always call the police, after getting to a safe place, if they have had any sort of negative confrontation in which they felt threatened. He also recommends that every process server have a pen camera on them at all times and that they record each serve they go on.

At the time of the incident, Mr. Garrett was going through the application process for the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency), which is one of the reasons he chose not to contact the police after the Shaver Auto Parts serve. DEA applicants are told to avoid becoming involved in any sort of lawsuit or court case because it will lengthen the processing of their application. Mr. Garrett is no longer a candidate for employment with the DEA. He says he thinks it may be an age issue and hopes, but does not know for sure, that the Dolly Nieves case did not have anything to do with it.

Mr. Garrett decided to take a plea in the case against him rather than go to court because of the expense. If he had gone to court, the process server would have spent twice as much money as he did on a lawyer. Instead, he completed 80 hours of community service within two weeks of the plea. He was charged with a misdemeanor. He hopes to put this whole experience behind him as soon as possible but recently found out that Dolly Nieves is building a civil case against him.