Trying to repo judge's car can be a headache (hold muh beer alert)

His surgical scar starts at the top of his head and ends halfway down his left ear. The surgery was necessary after a Greenwood, Miss., police officer tossed him, handcuffed, into a concrete road curb after charging him with disturbing the peace, according to a federal lawsuit filed last week against the City of Greenwood.

The repo man is recovering from brain surgery required after doctors found an aneurysm following the incident with police.

"It's tough,'' Reed, 29, said in an interview Tuesday. "I was so active before.''

The sequence of events began with a faxed notice to Reed's American Lender Services Co. on Wednesday, Nov. 6, asking that he repossess the 1999 silver Mercedes that Leflore County Judge Solomon C. Osborne drove but which was co-owned by his wife and mother-in-law. They owed the lender $2,076.

Reed took the case, and found the car outside Osborne's law offices in Greenwood. Another car was parked too close to it to use his towing sling, so Reed waited, watching Osborne drive around town. By 4 p.m. the car was parked in a driveway and accessible.

Using the sling, Reed quickly hooked up the Mercedes and began towing it away. But the car's bumper hit the pavement, setting off an alarm. Osborne, the lawsuit says, ran outside, jumped in a mid-1970s Ford LTD with another man, and gave chase, "running stop signs and stop lights . . . to catch up to him.''

Eventually, the Ford pulled ahead and blocked Reed. Osborne jumped onto Reed's truck and began beating on the top, the suit says, and Reed dialed 911 and held the phone out so that the dispatcher could hear Osborne "yelling and screaming.''

Greenwood Officer Curtis Lee was the first on the scene, arriving while Osborne was still atop Reed's truck. Reed showed his repossession paperwork to both Lee and Officer John Avent. Eventually, the officers told Osborne that Reed had a right to the Mercedes and told Osborne's companion to move the LTD blocking the tow truck's path. They told Reed he was free to leave.

But when Reed tried to drive off, Osborne got into the Mercedes and closed the door, the suit says. The police removed him, but Osborne then jumped into the tow truck and tried to drive it off with the Mercedes in tow. Again, Osborne had to be physically removed, according to the suit.

After some additional disagreement on how to resolve the dispute, Lee said he wanted the tow truck and Mercedes both towed, but separately. When Reed insisted that the vehicles be towed together, Lee told Reed he was being arrested for disorderly conduct. He was handcuffed and placed in the patrol car.

When Reed complained that the handcuffs were too tight, Lee told him to get out of the patrol car. When he didn't immediately respond, Lee yanked him out of the car by the handcuffs, the suit alleges, and Reed landed on the pavement, his head striking the curb. The suit says Lee then pulled Reed up by his long-sleeved shirt and dropped him, again hitting his head on the curb. Reed asked for an ambulance.

While they waited for the ambulance, Lee wrote Reed a citation for parking in the street.

Later, Reed swore out an affidavit against Osborne for assault, trespass and malicious mischief. He told police he also wanted to file a complaint against Lee, but was told he couldn't.

The next morning Reed's wife got a phone call telling her that CAT scans revealed her husband needed an immediate referral to a neurosurgeon. He had an aneurysm behind his left eye.

Reed spent 5 d days at St. Dominic's Hospital in Jackson and has been ordered by his doctors not to lift objects of more than five pounds. The Marine Corps veteran, who tried out for the Olympic archery team, now can't lift his 8-week-old daughter or 2-year-old son.

In an interview Tuesday, the Greenwood native said this wasn't his first altercation in five years as a repo man, but "I try to avoid conflicts.''

Osborne did not return calls from The Commercial Appeal Tuesday. Greenwood Police Chief Ronnie White declined comment on his officers' actions.

Despite a checkered history, Osborne, the former Leflore County public defender and school board attorney, was appointed county judge by Gov. Ronnie Musgrove in August 2001.

The local daily Greenwood Commonwealth, in announcing the appointment, detailed the $175,870 in federal tax liens pending against him and his history - including a public reprimand from a complaint tribunal of the Mississippi Supreme Court - of sanctions for unethical conduct. The reprimand mentioned a bankruptcy court's 1995 order that prevented him from filing bankruptcies.

Great, a professional deadbeat on the bench.

"...The surgery was necessary after a Greenwood, Miss., police officer tossed him, handcuffed, into a concrete road curb after charging him with disturbing the peace, according to a federal lawsuit filed last week against the City of Greenwood..."

Wouldn't it be a hoot if the repo man used some of the proceeds of his suit to settle the score with this thug?

Osborne was elected to the $82,000-a-year post last month.

Last month I went into the voting booth and voted AGAINST ALL JUDGE retentions. Now I'm in Florida, but this is one of the reasons why!

This brings some larger questions.

The cops know who this judge is, what he is all about, how he got there. Why would the police do something so stupid? What does this say about the police? Can the same be expected when any officer of the court is about to be consumed by the same machine they claim to uphold?

Really funny thought here.....Qualified to be a judge, but would be disqualified as an airport worker who hauls bags. This man would fail the screening process in working for any private industry. His "checkered past" is only something to be tolerated at the public trough.

"...Can the same be expected when any officer of the court is about to be consumed by the same machine they claim to uphold?..."

No judge other than Supreme Court Justices should sit on the bench for more than a couple of years.

Corruption tends to take root when they tarry longer than that.

I missed what happened with the Florida judges in the election as the story was overshadowed by more important ones. Did any of the bad judges lose (Florida Supreme Court)?

It can and does work the other way also.

I grew up in a town where the local majestrate was on the bench for 30 years. He knew those cops like a book. He kept them on a short leash. He was fair to all parties that came before him. I saw a policeman lie in front of his bench over the policeman using profanity toward kids in his squad car. The judge told the cop that the policeman's dishonesty concerned him more than any adjectives used to describe the kids, however accurate they may have been.The kids were found guilty of whatever juevenile nonsense was at issue, but the kids did not lie, the policeman did.

After thiry years, the good citizens had the good thought to elect his daughter to the bench when he retired.

It's better to lose the occasional 'good judge' to judicial turnover than it is to retain those corrupted by power.

Corruption thrives in the dark, in the back room, the closed wound...

Keep the doors open, the lights on and the time holding power short and corruption will be less of a problem.

Did any of the bad judges lose (Florida Supreme Court)?

Unfortunately No! Too many sheeples who just say, oh heck, why not. I think that they got a lower percentage than the ones running in 2000 but no data. The lowest count for the Supreme Court was around 64%.

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