Tremaine A. Neverson, better known as Trey Songz, is suing the Kansas City Police Department over an incident that happened five years ago at Arrowhead Stadium.
According to a lawsuit filed Thursday in Jackson County Circuit Court, intoxicated attendees seated near the R&B singer at that year’s AFC Championship game against the Buffalo Bills recognized him and began heckling him. This escalated into “threats and harassment,” the suit says, claiming that when police and event staff arrived at the scene, instead of dealing with the hecklers, officers assaulted, handcuffed, and detained Neverson.
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Neverson was later charged with trespassing, resisting arrest, and assaulting a police officer. But those charges were later dismissed. At the time, TMZ published a video of the confrontation between Neverson and the police, which shows Trey and the officer struggling before an officer pins him to a seat.
KCPD said in a statement soon after the incident that Neverson’s arrest stemmed from the singer not wearing a mask, in violation of the stadium’s policies and Kansas City’s then-active mask mandate. According to police, when security asked Neverson to mask up, he was not receptive. “Security then asked him to leave. He refused to leave,” the KCPD statement said. “At that point, they requested law enforcement assistance in ejecting him from the stadium. Officers advised the man that if he did not leave, he would be arrested for trespassing. He still refused to comply, at which point officers told him he was under arrest.”
Reached for comment about the lawsuit, KCPD said, “Generally we do not comment on pending litigation to ensure fairness for all sides involved.”
Representing Neverson is St. Louis-based attorney Jerryl Christmas. About his client’s arrest having anything to do with violating a mask mandate, Christmas notes Jackson County’s mask mandate was for individuals indoors. “Not to mention Arrowhead is an outdoor venue.”
A former city prosecutor, Christmas has been involved in many high-profile legal matters here. He successfully defended a member of the clergy against a charge of willfully disobeying a lawful order to disperse stemming from the 2014 Ferguson protests. Last year, he began a legal battle to close down the Crown Mart gas station in the Academy neighborhood where his brother was shot and killed. He was also one of the attorneys who won a massive $18.75 million judgment against the city on behalf of Dennis Ball-Bey, whose 18-year-old son had been killed by police. In Orlando, he also won a $310 million verdict against the amusement park where a St. Louis-area teen was killed, although in that case the park failed to mount a defense.
Christmas said of the Neverson suit that even though the charges against his client were dismissed, “the physical injuries and lasting damage to his professional reputation remain.”
He added, “This lawsuit is about transparency and ensuring that no individual, regardless of their celebrity status, is subjected to excessive force and negligence by those sworn to protect the public.”
Alongside the Kansas City police, Neverson’s suit also names Whelan Event Services and the Government Employees Health Association as defendants. GEHA holds the naming rights for the field at Arrowhead.
As Trey Songz, Neverson has been nominated for three Grammys, but he’s also been sued civilly for sexual assault at least twice, one of which ended in a dismissal and the other in a settlement. A third lawsuit accusing him of assault is set to go to trial later this year in Las Vegas. He also faces criminal charges in New York City stemming from incidents in December in which he got into a fight with a nightclub employee and, in a separate incident, damaged $1500 of a different club’s property.
