Chicago to pay millions in jail ‘ brute force’ case
An autopsy showed Philip Coleman suffered severe trauma after being dragged from his cell.
CHICAGO — Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration has tentatively agreed to pay about $ 4.9 million to the family of a man who was dragged handcuffed from his cell by police in an incident captured on video that a judge said showed a police employee using “brute force” on the suspect.
The mayor’s office has set up briefings this week with elected officials to inform them of the settlement with the family of Philip Coleman, said Roderick Sawyer, a Chicago alderman.
That’s to give council members wary about police abuse cases in the wake of the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald a heads- up about the hefty taxpayer- funded settlement in the high- profile Coleman case that will be on the agenda of the coun- cil’s finance committee next week.
In 2012, officers arrested Coleman, 38, who appeared to be having a significant mental health crisis, after he assaulted his mother at her home.
Coleman died after a fatal reaction to an antipsychotic drug, but an autopsy showed he had experienced severe trauma, including more than 50 bruises and abrasions on his body from the top of his head to his lower legs.
The video shows police repeatedly using a Taser on Coleman and dragging him out of a South Side lockup cell by his arms while handcuffed.
Coleman’s family alleged that police also shocked him 13 times with a Taser at Roseland Community Hospital and struck him repeatedly with a baton.
In December, U. S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly ruled that a police employee used brute force when he dragged Coleman out of his cell and down a police station hallway.
The judge also found that the employee’s supervisor failed to stop the abuse of Coleman and that no evidence existed that police gave Coleman the chance to leave his lockup cell on his own after he was repeatedly shocked with a Taser.
Kennelly, who is presiding over the Coleman family’s civil rights lawsuit, wrote in his ruling that it would be up to a jury to determine monetary damages against Keith Kirkland, a civilian detention aide, and Sgt. Tommy Walker, who is now retired.
“Kirkland chose to use brute force when it was no longer necessary,” Kennelly wrote.
“Sgt. Walker conceded during his deposition that the officers could have stood Mr. Coleman up and told him to walk.... It is undisputed that Sgt. Walker could have ordered Kirkland not to drag, or to stop dragging, Mr. Coleman and that he chose not to do so.”
The spotlight on such city settlements is particularly bright after the City Council agreed last April to pay McDonald’s estate $ 5 million in response to the 17year- old’s fatal shooting by a white police officer several months earlier.
The McDonald case drew national attention and prompted a federal investigation of Chicago Police Department tactics after Emanuel released a police dashboard camera video in November that showed Officer Jason Van Dyke shoot the teen 16 times as he walked from police with a knife in his hand.
Van Dyke has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges.