Posted on 05/07/2024 9:41:56 PM PDT by Morgana
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – A 71-year-old man who was yanked out his home while wearing a bathrobe, thrown to the pavement face first and then handcuffed by police has received $250,000 to settle a lawsuit claiming Louisville and Jeffersontown officers used excessive force.
The lawsuit filed on behalf of Frank Serapiglia in March 2020 was dismissed this March after being settled, with Louisville Metro Police liable for $245,000 and the Jeffersontown Police Department paying the other $5,000.
“This settlement reflects the substantial pain and suffering inflicted on Mr. Serapiglia as a result of the excessive force of the LMPD officers involved,” said attorney Thomas Clay, who represented Serapiglia.
LMPD did not immediately respond to a request as to whether any officers were punished.
Serapiglia was in his kitchen drinking coffee and reading the news early in the morning on Sept. 18, 2019, when he heard yelling and noticed several police officers outside his home with guns drawn, according to the lawsuit.
Serapiglia thought officers must be pursuing a suspect running through his neighborhood. Then he heard banging on his front door.
He didn’t know police were responding to a 911 call made by Serapiglia’s ill wife while he was downstairs. The woman had called 911 in a “delusional state” claiming her husband had shot her in the head, according to the lawsuit.
As Serapiglia was opening the door in his bathrobe, a police officer reached in the house, grabbed him and threw him to the pavement, where he landed face first, according to police body cam video that captured the incident.
(Excerpt) Read more at wdrb.com ...
and Why aren’t they in jail?
Police enjoy a great deal of immunity for the same reason judges and public officials do. Every time a police officer issued a ticket to a litigious individual they would have to defend themselves in a lawsuit. Unless a police officer is acting with malice, that is for reasons unrelated to their official duties, they are immune. This case looks like a obvious case of overzealousness. But if I responded to a case of a report of domestic violence with a firearm, I would have my adrenaline pumped up, for sure.
My mother-in-law had Parkinson's. She was also mean-spirited and spiteful. For some reason she took a shine to me, and obviously envied her daughter. Which did not help things. One day while arranging magazines on a coffee table she fell and bruised her face while we were there. Someone, I am not sure who, called an ambulance. The ambulance and the fire chief showed up. The chief was apparently there to "investigate" in an informal way. I thought his behavior was appropriate and reasonable. He saw an old, handicapped woman with a bruised face, an older man, and a young muscular man married to the daughter, who was also present. He asked my MIL if anyone had hurt her, and she assured him that no one had. The ambulance crew rendered first aid and left, but I noticed a gleam in my MIL's eye.
This was back in the day of landlines and touchtone dialing. My MIL had become bed ridden so I got her a phone with auto dialing. Fire and ambulance were not "911" in her town, so I programmed the phone with those numbers, as well as ours and other convenient numbers. You know where this is going. She got in the habit of calling police and ambulance to say that her husband had assaulted her. My FIL was a well known person in town, and knew most of the police and fire personally, and was absolutely incapable of what she claimed, and showed no signs of bruising or assault, so they began to ignore her calls.
Apparently, that is what the wife in this scenario was doing. SWATting her own husband. It's a thing with nasty old women.
“........who was yanked out his home...” No, where is the editor for this writer? The correct phrasing is “who was yanked out OF his home..”
Even I knew that.
End qualified immunity.
Not even editing, proof reading. Most of us filled it in for ourselves, automatically. It is very difficult to proofread your own copy. As I often demonstrate.
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