By Brian Byrne
Parma City Council has agreed
to pay $40,000 to settle a police brutality lawsuit brought forth by the mother
of a 16-year-old boy.
PARMA, Ohio -- City Council on
Monday agreed to pay $40,000 to settle a police brutality lawsuit brought forth
by the mother of a 16-year-old boy.
The suit accused officer James
Manzo of unjustifiably striking the boy twice in the head while placing him in
a cruiser following a traffic stop in November 2012.
Filed in November in Cuyahoga
County Common Pleas Court, the suit sought unspecified damages for the boy,
claiming assault and battery, false arrest and imprisonment and professional
misconduct. It states he has suffered continued headaches as a result of the
incident, and incurred substantial medical bills.
Council met in executive
session to discuss the out-of-court settlement, and approved it on
first-reading suspension of the rules, meaning it did not receive the required
three separate reviews.
“I assume they were anxious to
resolve this case because I think they realized patrolman Manzo was completely
out of line with what he did,” the boy’s lawyer, Terry Gilbert, said Tuesday.
City spokesperson Jeannie
Roberts said officials would not comment on the case because it remains open as
the settlement is finalized.
According to the suit, the boy
and two others had just been picked up by his father after visiting a friend
when the van was pulled over by Manzo, who indicated the vehicle was stopped
"because it was circling the block." The boy disputed the officer’s
assertion, leading Manzo to open the van and say, “if you want to be a smart
ass, come here."
As Manzo placed the boy in a
cruiser following a pat down, “he produced a hard object, probably a
flashlight, and struck (the boy) twice in the head without justification,” the
suit reads. Manzo then left the boy bleeding in the cruiser while he radioed
dispatch, allegedly falsely reporting the juvenile had bumped his head on the
window.
“As a potential cover up to any
wrong-doing, the blood from (the boy’s) head which got on (Manzo’s) patrol car
was cleaned up before investigators had a chance to inspect and preserve the
evidence. This evidence would have bearing on the veracity of the attack,” the
suit states.
The boy was transported by EMS
for treatment at University Hospitals Parma Medical Center, where he was
handcuffed to a bed, according to the suit. He ultimately received stitches and
staples to seal a facial contusion.
“I think the citizens of Parma
should be concerned that they have a cop that has a license to go around and
beat minors up like that without suffering consequences,” Gilbert said. “This
was not just an accident, it was an intentional, deliberate act against a
defenseless minor. There’s just no excuse for it. If anyone else did something
like this, they would be hauled off and be charged and have to answer to a
felony.”
A police report for the
incident was not immediately available.
City Law Director Tim Dobeck
said Tuesday the boy has unspecified charges pending against him in juvenile
court.
This is the second allegation
of police brutality the city has faced in recent months. In October,
Independence resident William Zaccardelli, 50, filed a federal lawsuit against
15 Parma and North Royalton officers, claiming he suffered a fractured skull as
a result of excessive force following an early-morning pursuit across those
cities in November 2012. Zaccardelli was later convicted of refusing to submit
to OVI testing in connection to the chase.
