News tagged with 'Inmate Abuse'

Oklahoma Women May Be Subject of Police Misconduct A woman in Oklahoma recently died after she received shocks from a taser gun administered by police. Milisha Thompson, 35, was already handcuffed and on the ground when she received the shocks. The incident, captured on a surveillance camera, shows

The Las Vegas Police Department has agreed to settle a misconduct lawsuit filed by two tourists for $900,000. In May 1997, 31-year-old Juan Berry and 32-year-old James Suggs were arrested outside a Las Vegas nightclub after a fight with off-duty SWAT officers. Berry and Suggs alleged they did nothing wrong and that t

Cook County, Illinois will pay $300,000 to an inmate who suffered severe injuries when he was stabbed by other prisoners in a Chicago jail. In 1994, inmate Joel Mayoral was stabbed 16 times and left paralyzed from the waist down after he was placed in the same cell as rival gang members. Mayoral alleged he requested

A Missouri jury awarded $2 million last week to a 52-year-old man who suffered severe injuries when he was shot by a police officer during a drug raid on his house. David Doran, a Kansas City mechanic, was shot twice in 1998 when police raided his home searching for a methamphetamine lab an anonymous caller claimed wa

A California jury awarded $2.045 million last week to an African-American motorist who was shot in the back by a Los Angeles police officer. Out-of-uniform officers Ronald Orosco and Gorgonio Medina pulled over Charles Beatty, 68, for a traffic violation on June 14, 2000. After receiving a citation, Beatty became arg

A jury recently awarded $11 million to an Illinois woman who suffered massive injuries during a high-speed police chase. In 1997, Salonica Prado was a passenger in Tracy Parham's vehicle when police officers from the city of Evanston attempted to pull Parham over, believing she was wanted on an arrest warrant. A chas

A videotaped beating of a California teenager has led to an internal affairs investigation of several officers employed by the Inglewood Police Department and raised concerns nationwide over law enforcement agencies' use of excessive force. On Saturday, a tourist videotaped Inglewood police officers arresting and subs

The city of Modesto, California agreed last week to pay $2.55 million to the family of an 11-year-old boy who was accidentally killed by authorities during a drug raid. Alberto Sepulveda was shot by a member of the Modesto Police Department's elite SWAT Team in September 2000 when the officer's shotgun accidentally di

The family of a California woman who was shot to death by her estranged husband has settled a lawsuit that alleged the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department failed to properly enforce a restraining order against him. Maria Macias, 36, was fatally shot and her mother, Sara Hernandez, was wounded in the April 1996 attack.

An Ohio jury recently awarded $1.8 million to a man who was wrongly accused of phoning in bomb threats to a place of business. In February 1998, authorities accused James Poma of making several threatening phone calls to Modern Building Supply (MBS), a window and door manufacturer in Youngstown. A police trace reveal

The family of a man who died while incarcerated in an Indiana jail was awarded $56.5 million recently on a civil rights claim. Christopher Moreland, 30, was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence in October 1997. Shortly after officers took the suspect to St. Joseph County Jail in South Bend, Moreland w

The city of Miami recently settled a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of a 19-year-old man who was killed by police officers while unarmed in November 1995. Authorities with the Miami Police Department shot Derrick Wiltshire and an accomplice, Antonio Young, as they fled a robbery. Wiltshire jumped off an I

A Florida teenager who was wrongly accused of murder by the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office two years ago settled a civil rights lawsuit with the city yesterday for $775,000. Officers arrested Brenton Butler, 17, in May 2000 and charged him in the robbery and murder of Georgia tourist Mary Ann Stephens. Butler, an Afri

The NAACP claims that an unusually high number of African-Americans are pulled over by police officers in the Washington, D.C. metro area. NAACP complaints of racial profiling by Montgomery County, Maryland police officers led to a U.S. Justice Department investigation that produced eyebrow-raising statistics. Accord

A Hollywood, Florida man died last week after a police officer shot him with a Taser gun, the police force's "nonlethal" alternative to conventional firearms. The gun, which resembles a .45-caliber automatic weapon, fires two darts, called probes, connected to 50,000-volt wires. The weapon is designed to immobilize a