Excessive force claims dropped
Judge says lawsuit’s theory does not support evidence.
A federal judge CINCINNATI — dismissed all excessive force claims against the Brown County Sheriff ’s Department in a lawsuit filed by a woman who claimed deputies staged her brother’s hanging in his jail cell.
Questions have swirled around the October 2013 death of Zachary Goldson, 24, after a former county coroner ruled his death a homicide and accused sheriff ’s deputies of killing him and staging his death as a suicide.
Goldson’s sister, Ashley Bard, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati six months after his death. She accused deputies of using excessive force, failing to intervene on the use of unreasonable force and being deliberately being indifferent to her brother’s medical needs.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott issued an order that essentially gutted the lawsuit for lack of evidence.
But she admitted that questions remain about Goldson’s death.
“Some evidence suggests that it would have been difficult ... for an inmate acting alone to have hung himself,” Dlott wrote in her order on a motion for summary judgment.
She dismissed the bulk of the claims against sheriff ’s deputies due to lack of evidence.
“Plaintiff has not put forth admissible evidence establishing who caused Goldson’s death and when if he did not commit suicide,” Dlott wrote. “Officers cannot be held liable simply because they took Goldson to his holding cell and/or were present at the jail when he died.”
In her 45-page order, Dlott picked apart theories and questions that have swirled around Goldson’s death for more than five years.
Goldson, who had a history of suicidal behavior, had been hospitalized briefly on the night of his death after he swallowed a pen. He then attacked and injured a sheriff ’s deputy, while trying to grab his gun, when the deputy was escorting him to his cruiser to transfer him back to the jail.
An hour later, deputies found Goldson with a bed sheet around his neck, hanging from an overhead sprinkler.