The Associated Press
BALTIMORE, Md. (AP) - A man who was left paralyzed after his neck was broken during a 1997 arrest by Baltimore police has agreed to a $6 million settlement with the city in a deal scheduled for approval on Wednesday.
The Board of Estimates will vote at its meeting Wednesday on the settlement with Jeffrey Adrian Alston, 39, a quadriplegic receiving around-the-clock care at an Ellicott City nursing home. This year, a jury awarded him $39 million, but a payout could have been reduced or delayed by appeals.
City Solicitor Ralph Tyler said that the city and Alston’s attorneys found “common ground” on a settlement that would cover the costs of caring for Alston. Tyler said that clearly “something happened” in the 1997 incident between Baltimore police and Alston, and that the settlement was a fair conclusion to the case.
State law dictates a $650,000 limit on “noneconomic” damages such as pain and suffering, which accounted for the bulk of the jury’s award to Alston. The limit at the time of the injury was $545,000.
A Circuit Court jury ordered the city in June to pay Alston $559,334 for past medical expenses, $8.5 million for future life-care costs and $30 million for physical and mental pain, impairment and disfigurement.
Jonathan Schochor, one of Alston’s lawyers, said he did not want to comment extensively about the settlement because he believed it was confidential.
“Everybody wanted to keep the details of this confidential,” Schochor said. “Jeffrey Alston has been through enough.”
Officers said that Alston freed himself from a seat belt in a police van and repeatedly rammed his head into a plastic window that separates police from passengers.
During the trial, Dr. Adrian Barbul, a trauma surgeon at Sinai Hospital, ruled out that contention. The surgeon said Alston had no external head injuries when he was taken to the hospital’s emergency room.
The incident occurred on Nov. 3, 1997, when Alston was stopped for speeding. Officer Arnold McDonald said he initially wanted to issue Alston a ticket but took him into custody after smelling alcohol on the man’s breath.
In the lawsuit, Alston alleged that three additional officers arrived at the scene and that he “was handcuffed, put in leg irons, strip searched, put in a headlock/choke hold and then thrown headfirst” into the back of a police van.
Court records showed that Alston had a long history of arrests, mostly for drug charges, but no convictions.