By Mara H. Gottfried
The St. Paul City Council is
due to approve a $95,000 settlement Wednesday to a man who was left with a
fractured skull and eye socket and a broken nose after an encounter with
police.
Thomas Benjamin Nelson, 30, was
unarmed when officers approached him in January 2012, according to a claim
Nelson's attorney sent the city seeking at least $100,000 in damages.
"The officers appeared to
have failed to identify who they were as they began a pursuit of Mr.
Nelson," attorney Christopher Zipko wrote. "Mr. Nelson, fearing for
his safety, eventually fled on foot and ran to his ... family member's
apartment."
Officers used their fists, feet
and a flashlight on Nelson, and he was hospitalized for several weeks, Zipko
wrote.
The encounter started, officers
said, when they stopped to investigate a suspicious vehicle near University and
Avon avenues.
Sandra Bodensteiner, St. Paul
claims manager, wrote to Zipko in August 2012 that officers had announced their
presence several times. They were in an unmarked vehicle, but their shirts said
"POLICE" in large letters, she wrote.
"Your client continued to
run and flee from officers, possibly due to an outstanding warrant your client
knew he had," Bodensteiner wrote. "Any injuries your client sustained
were due to your clients' own actions."
Nelson, Zipko and the city
attorney's office "engaged in voluntary mediation for over a year to
resolve this matter, to avoid the high cost of litigation and attorneys'
fees," said St.
Paul City Attorney Sara Grewing
in an email Monday. The city does not admit liability.
The Ramsey County attorney's
office had charged Nelson with fourth-degree assault against an officer in the
case. After Nelson fled into an apartment in the 700 block of Aurora Avenue, he
"punched at officer (Erik) Diskerud, hitting him in the face and
head," according to the criminal complaint.
"Officer Diskerud, to
subdue Nelson, administered four closed fist strikes to the center mass of
Nelson's face," the complaint said. "Nelson continued to struggle
with police, so Officer (Kevin) Sullivan struck Nelson in the face with his
flashlight. Officer Sullivan states that he did not want to put his flashlight
down because the apartment was dark and he wanted to immediately stop Nelson's
resistance, since both officers were exhausted."
The charge against Nelson was
dismissed after prosecutors found in a second review of the case they didn't
have sufficient evidence to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt, said
Dennis Gerhardstein, county attorney's office spokesman.
Before the dismissal, Zipko had
filed a motion including a witness' statement that Nelson was "face down
and was not in a position that he could have punched at the officers."
Zipko also wrote in the 2012
filing that some officers who were part of the arrest had been involved in an
incident at a Lino Lakes bar, where they were alleged to have started a fight
with two women and a male acquaintance of the women.
The incident showed that
Diskerud, Sullivan and officer Jason Whitney had "a propensity to assault
others in an unprovoked manner," Zipko wrote.
"Further, the officers
have a propensity to act as one cohesive unit to ... craft their stories to
suggest that they are the victims."
Sullivan pleaded guilty to
disorderly conduct in the Lino Lakes case and the charge was dismissed last
summer when conditions were met, according to a court record.
At the police department,
Sullivan received a three-day suspension for improper conduct, a prosecutor
wrote in another document, adding the "circumstances (in the Nelson case)
bear no resemblance, relevance or connection to events in a suburban bar that
occurred while officer Sullivan was off duty."
The allegations about the Lino
Lakes case weren't a factor in the settlement, Grewing said.
"We asked the City Council
to approve this settlement because it was in the best interest of the taxpayers
to resolve this case before trial," the city attorney said. "The
amount is consistent with the injuries that this plaintiff sustained, along
with the hospitalization costs and other medical bills."
The St. Paul City Council has
approved about $2.2 million in settlements this year, including $1 million to
families of two children killed and one injured in a landslide in Lilydale
Regional Park and $800,000 in a lease dispute with Black Bear Crossings in the
Como Lake pavilion.
The Nelson settlement will be
the largest settlement in an allegation of police misconduct approved this
year.
Tad Vezner and Elizabeth Mohr
contributed to this report.
