$50M lawsuit filed in ATV Taser case
A $50 million lawsuit was filed against a Michigan state trooper who Tasered a Detroit teen on an ATV shortly before the teen crashed his vehicle and died last weekend.
Attorney Geoffrey Fieger filed the lawsuit Wednesday against the trooper on behalf of the family of 15-year-old Damon Grimes.
Fieger called the incident “a drive-by shooting of a child on an ATV.”
“Under no circumstance should any police officer ever shoot like a cowboy out of his vehicle, out the window,” he said at a news conference, flanked by Damon’s mother and father, Monique Grimes and John Hughes.
The federal lawsuit was filed in Detroit on Thursday and is assigned to U.S. District Judge Gershwin Drain.
The suit was filed against a “John Doe” defendant, because Fieger has not confirmed the trooper’s identity.
The trooper was identified by the Detroit Free Press as Mark Bessner, 43.
“The death of Damon Grimes was tragic, and our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends,” Bess- ner’s attorney, Richard Convertino, wrote in an emailed statement to the Detroit Free Press. “On August 26th, Troopers attempted to stop Mr. Grimes who recklessly and dangerously drove an ATV as he actively resisted and evaded arrest. During the pursuit, Trooper Bessner was forced to make a split-second decision under circumstances on the scene and at the moment, which was tense, uncertain and rapidly evolving.”
Bessner has been sued in the past after being accused of excessive force. Since 2013, two civil lawsuits, both of them in- volving Tasers, have been filed against Bessner. The first, which was filed in 2013 in U.S. District Court in Detroit and settled a year later, said Bessner “repeatedly struck” and “gratuitously kneed” an unarmed plaintiff, who was never charged with a crime. The second case, filed in Wayne County Circuit Court in 2015, said Bessner Tasered the plaintiff on “multiple and continuous occasions with the specific intent of inflicting pain,” including after the plaintiff was in handcuffs.
On Aug. 26, Grimes died after crashing his all-terrain vehicle into a pickup after Bessner reached out the window of his patrol vehicle and shocked him with a Taser.
It’s a violation of Michigan State Police policy to deploy a Taser from a moving vehicle.
Grimes was weeks away from starting the ninth grade at Michigan Collegiate High School in Warren.
Fieger said ATV riding was one of the teen’s hobbies, something he enjoyed doing with his father, John.
Tasers have been used by police officers since the late 1990s. Those in favor of the devices say they can defuse a confrontation without an officer having to turn to a deadly force, but critics say the devices themselves can be deadly.