Alexander Morris of the legendary vocal quartet The Four Tops has sued a hospital for alleged racial discrimination and false imprisonment.
Morris has filed the lawsuit against a Michigan hospital, who he claims put him in a restraining jacket when Morris told them he was in the legendary Motown group. The Four Tops singer went to the emergency room at Ascension Macomb Oakland Hospital on April 7, 2023, as he was apparently suffering from chest pains and had difficulty breathing whilst singing and touring with The Temptations.
However, upon telling the hospital about his profession, Morris alleges white hospital staff “wrongfully assumed he was mentally ill” and placed him in “a restraining jacket and/or a four-point restraint mechanism.” He went on to accuse staff of removing his oxygen, and ordering him to wait for a compulsory psychological evaluation.
The lawsuit also claims staff refused to confirm his identity, his “significant” history of cardiac disease, or even see his identification card. According to Morris, upon offering to show his card, a white male security guard told him to “sit his Black ass down”: “None of the nursing staff intervened to stop the racial discrimination and mistreatment,” the lawsuit also reads.
Morris was said to have been released from his straitjacket upon convincing a nurse to watch a video of him performing at the Grammys (Morris has been part of the group since 2019). The nurse apparently then “realised” he was a member of the Four Tops and told other hospital staff; only then was the psychological evaluation said to have been cancelled and Morris released from his restraints and treated. The lawsuit alleges he was eventually diagnosed with a “severe heart condition and pneumonia.”
According to the lawsuit, a hospital security guard contacted Morris afterwards to notify him the guard who restrained him allegedly had a history of making racist comments and “frequently used excessive force with patients.” The guard also claimed employees tampered with Morris’ incident report, and that employees were instructed not to discuss what took place.
In a statement sent to Rolling Stone, Ascension Hospital said although it couldn’t comment specifically on the incident, “we do not condone racial discrimination of any kind. The health, safety and well-being of our patients, associates and community members remains our top priority. We remain committed to honouring human dignity and acting with integrity and compassion for all persons and the community.”
Meanwhile, Morris’ lawyer, Maurice Davis, told the publication: “This case is important because the hospital staff assumed that because he was a Black man, he was having some kind of psychotic episode, he was out of his mind, and he needed to be physically restrained, like he presented some type of danger to the hospital staff.
“They wanted to restrain his hands, bind him, and make sure he couldn’t harm anyone. So instead of assuming that he’s a successful Black man, leader of the Four Tops that he is, they assumed he posed a danger.”
Davis also emphasised that Morris “could have died,” adding: “Instead of providing him with treatment, they were restraining him. He was going through a pretty serious medical situation, and he was mistreated and discriminated against.”