By Todd Lighty and Steve Mills
Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO — A federal judge ruled Monday that a Chicago police employee used “brute force” when he dragged a handcuffed suspect out of his cell and down a police station hallway in an encounter in 2012 that was captured on video and stirred protests last week over police brutality.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly also found that the employee’s supervisor failed to stop the abuse of Philip 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 against the city, the police department and others, wrote in his ruling that it will 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 in a strongly worded opinion. “Sergeant Walker conceded during his deposition that the officers could have stood Mr. Coleman up and told him to walk… It is undisputed that Sergeant Walker could have ordered Kirkland not to drag, or to stop dragging Mr. Coleman and that he chose not to do so.”
Coleman, 38, died at a hospital after a fatal reaction to an anti-psychotic drug. An autopsy, though, showed that he suffered severe trauma, including more than 50 cuts and bruises on his body from the top of his head to his lower legs.
As City Hall last week released the video showing officers’ confrontation with Coleman, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said the treatment of Coleman was unacceptable. The Independent Police Review Authority, the civilian agency that investigates the police use of force, also announced it was reopening its investigation into the matter, despite having earlier cleared the officers of any wrongdoing.
Ed Fox, the Coleman family’s lawyer, said Kennelly’s ruling shows that police oversight in Chicago is broken and needs to be overhauled.
"(The ruling) is important because the question of excessive force in connection with dragging Philip Coleman is no longer for a jury’s determination as this piece of the case has been now determined,” Fox said. “It is also a judicial recognition, before trial, that excessive force was indisputably used. It is also important because the supervisor on the scene ... is also liable since he just stood by and let it happen, if not facilitated it happening.
“By inference, at trial, we will also contend that another supervisor on the scene, as well as the remaining officers that were in the cell where Philip was Tased and choked, should also be liable for dragging Philip,” he said.
City officials had no immediate comment on the judge’s decision.
Coleman, a University of Chicago political science graduate, was taken into custody Dec. 12, 2012. He had gone to his parents Far South Side home to speak with his mother, Lena, when he suffered a mental breakdown, shouting at his mother, throwing furniture and punching her in the face, Coleman’s family has said. Lena Coleman called police and told officers on the scene that she did not want to press charges. A police report said Philip Coleman spit bloody saliva on two officers and, as a result, he was charged with aggravated battery.
The police video of the next morning shows six officers at the Calument police district lockup entering Coleman’s cell to take him to bond court. Coleman, who had been asleep, stood, then was Tasered, before officers wrestled him to the floor and handcuff him. He was shocked three times. Police have said they shocked Coleman because he was uncooperative. The video shows Kirkland dragging Coleman out of his cell and down the hall by his handcuffs, according to Kennelly’s opinion.
“Mr. Coleman is motionless while being dragged,” Kennelly wrote. “His legs are shackled together at the ankles and are not moving.”
Kennelly dismissed the city’s contention that Kirkland reacted to an evolving situation and made a “decision on the fly.”
“Whatever the propriety of the use of a Taser and the ensuing efforts to subdue Mr. Coleman, once the officers had his hands and legs shackled, he was under control and on the floor,” Kennelly wrote. ‘Given those circumstances, there is no viable claim, and no reasonable jury could find, that Officer Kirkland had to make a split-second decision on what to do next.”
Coleman was taken to Roseland Community Hospital, where police reports state, he again became combative. Coleman was stunned 13 times with a Taser and struck with a baton.
Copyright 2015 the Chicago Tribune