The lawsuit stems from an April 23, 2011 fight inside
a now-closed Buckhead IHOP.
Posted by Justin Ove
The Atlanta Police Department officer who was cleared
of wrongdoing after a scuffle in a Buckhead IHOP in April 2011 is facing a
renewed lawsuit filed by one of the women who was arrested.
Officer Jose Vidal, who was working as an off-duty
security guard at the time, has been sued by Roberta Caban for unspecified
compensatory and punitive damages, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Reports.
According to the suit, Caban and her friend Cynthia
Freeman were assaulted, falsely arrested, and falsely held in Fulton County
jail where they were humiliated by being forced to use the bathroom before male
inmates.
Atlanta Police see it another way; Vidal's incident
report states that Freeman was acting disorderly inside the now-closed IHOP,
and when asked to leave, refused.
Police then say that Freeman began punching Vidal, and
was also accosted by Ashley Leavell, who allegedly punched the officer in the
face. Vidal was caught on camera returning Leavell's punch.
The attorney for the women arrested at the IHOP that
night told the AJC in May, 2011 that the police's story about the chain of
events was "riddled with inaccuracies."
The Atlanta Police Department cleared Vidal of any
wrongdoing, but that didn't stop Leavell from filing a lawsuit against Vidal
and IHOP in May, 2013. It is not known if the two suits are related or why the
suit needed to be filed again.
