Lawsuits allege police had pattern, practice of violating constitutional rights
By Heather Cobun
BridgeTower Media Newswires
BALTIMORE, MD — Fifteen individuals filed suits against the Baltimore Police Department in federal court Tuesday alleging a variety of civil rights violations including physical assault, excessive force and false arrest.
The lawsuits claim the city and police department failed to train and supervise officers who acted with intentional disregard to the plaintiffs and their rights, according to a news release from 1-800-LAW-FIRM, a national firm based in Michigan. The plaintiffs are also represented by Conrad J. Benedetto of Philadelphia.
The alleged abuses often resulted in serious injuries, according to the release, and each lawsuit alleges the police had a pattern and practice of violating constitutional rights, often echoing the findings of the U.S. Department of Justice released last year.
Solomon Radner, one of the attorneys behind 1-800-LAW-FIRM, said litigating a claim that police engaged in such a pattern or practice in Baltimore will be unique because of the existence of the Justice Department report which was based on countless documents and communications turned over by the police department, which he plans to seek in discovery.
“I’m not going to base it on the DOJ (report), I’m going to base it on what was given to the DOJ,” Radner said Wednesday.
Radner said he believes he can make a sufficient argument to survive a motion for summary judgment.
The claims range from baseless searches and arrests to assaults requiring hospitalization and are all based on federal civil rights violations, not potential state law claims, which Radner said is part of his litigation strategy.
One plaintiff alleges more than 20 officers in tactical gear rushed into her home, told her they were conducting a raid, placed her and everyone in the home in one room and allegedly “destroyed” the home before handing her an unsigned warrant. Another accuses officers of ignoring a man’s offer of video evidence that he was not present when a crime was committed and instead taking him into custody and assaulting him.
In one case, a woman who was on her way to the hospital for a suspected miscarriage claims she was arrested for obstructing and hindering after her fiance, who was driving, was taken into custody on an open warrant. In another, a woman alleges she was sexually assaulted by an officer in her home then harassed by police to drop the complaint, culminating in an assault in police custody after she reported a robbery.
Some of the complaints include claims for violations of the Eighth Amendment for failing to provide or delaying medical care to those in their custody despite being on notice of serious medical needs.
“Different courts could view this differently and on the off-chance that the court decides they were in the custody of the BPD and therefore the Eighth Amendment applies, I wanted to include them,” Radner said.
Each plaintiff requested a jury trial and claimed damages in excess of $75,000 on each cause of action.
