Baltimore
has shelled out nearly $17 million over the last two years in brutality cases
In a
rather strange, bordering on the bizarre, police brutality lawsuit, a 90-year
old resident of Baltimore Venus Green was awarded a $95,000 settlement for an
incident in 2009, when she locked up a police idiot cop in the basement of her
home.
Three Police Idiot cops had
come to her home, following the shooting of her grandson Tallie. Inspite of
repeated pleas from Green that her grandson had been shot at a convenience
store, the police were adamant that, either she had shot her grandson, or that
he had shot himself.
One of the idiot cops, then
forced his way into her home, without a valid search warrant, and went to the
basement where Tallie lived, hoping to find evidence of their allegations. The
idiot cop incensed that she asked him not to enter her house, allegedly said,
“I’m going to find that gun. I’m going to prove that you did it.”
Green told WBAL television that
the idiot cop jostled her, pushed her over a chair, handcuffed her and insulted
her. When the idiot cop went into her basement, she says she shut the door and
locked him inside. The scuffle with the idiot cop left her with a dislocated
shoulder. “They treated me like a criminal,” she said.
She said that all her requests
to allow the ambulance to treat her injured grandson fell on deaf ears.
She later filed a civil rights
lawsuit, seeking $6 million in damages. However after a deal between her and
city lawyers it was settled with an offer of $95,000 in early April, which she
accepted. She told WBAL, “I’m a law-abiding citizen. I’ve never been arrested,
I paid my taxes, owned my home, my husband died 34 years ago. I raised my son
and I have been brutally abused. I feel like the police department needs to go
back to school.”
WBAL reports that the
settlement to Green for police brutality by the city of Baltimore is not an
isolated case. The city has shelled out nearly $17 million over the last two
years in such settlements. The city has spent $10.4 million in legal costs,
defending lawsuits in the court. A couple who charged that they were unlawfully
searched and harassed by police looking for drugs have been approved for
$155,000, and a motorcyclist who was struck by a Baltimore cop is to be given
$115,000.
Venus Green for her feisty ways
has become ‘part of Baltimore lore.’ Stevenson University assistant professor
Heather Harris called her a “fierce angel”, an observable reference to a book
by Sheri Parks, where she uses the phrase to “to describe an African-American
woman who is almost impossibly strong and selfless.”
Defending her decision to take
the law into her own hands and locking the door, she said, “This was my private
home, and if I latched it, that was my prerogative because he had no search
warrant to go in my basement. So, I had to right to latch it”
Baltimore City Council
President Bernard Young voted against the settlement for Ms. Green, explaining
that he was “tired of the police department bleeding money.”
Had enough? Write to the Speaker of the House, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515 and demand federal
hearings into the police problem in America.
Demand mandatory body cameras for cops, one strike rule on abuse, and a
permanent DOJ office on Police
Misconduct.
