A federal jury has awarded $100 million to a panhandler who cracked his neck in Atlanta in 2018 after a police officer stunned him with a stun gun while leading a foot pursuit.
According to Jerry Blasingame’s lawyer, Ven Johnson, the 69-year-old is paraplegic as a result of the accident and requires 24-hour care that costs $1 million a year.
He has already racked up $14 million in medical expenditures.
The jury concluded that Officer Jon Grubbs used excessive force on Blasingame, who was 65 years old at the time and had been requesting money from motorists on July 10, 2018.
According to WXIA-TV and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the jury determined that the Atlanta Police Department should pay $60 million and Grubbs should pay $40 million.
A application for a directed verdict has been submitted by the city. A judge’s decision on such motion might change the jury’s decision.
Online court records show that Judge Steve Jones has not yet made a decision about that request. Before the jury started deliberating, Jones said that they may fairly conclude that Grubbs used excessive force and that they could take the city’s case into account.
According to Jones’ Friday letter, the evidence “would allow the jury to find that Mr. Blasingame had not yet committed a serious crime, that Officer Grubbs had no reason to fear for his safety, and that the exigent circumstances were not otherwise so severe as to justify Officer Grubbs’ use of force.”
The city of Atlanta and the officer, Jon Grubbs, were sued by Blasingame’s conservator, Keith Edwards, for the cost of his past and future medical expenses.
According to Johnson and civil rights lawyer Craig Jones, Grubbs’ use of a stun gun on an elderly man who was fleeing was against department protocol, as reported in the newspaper.
According to Edwards’ complaint, when Grubbs and another officer arrived, they saw Blasingame chatting with a driver while he was on the street and begging for money.
Blasingame went out of the roadway to a guard rail when Grubbs ordered him to stop, according to the complaint, and Grubbs chased after him.
Grubbs exits the vehicle and begins after my client, a 65-year-old man, for what reason? for maybe soliciting donations from others? Johnson remarked.
Grubbs was permitted to return to full duty six months after the event and before the inquiry was finished, according to Johnson, who said the city did not perform a comprehensive enough probe into his behaviour.
In his closing statement to the jury, he said, “This is how an officer gets away with using excessive force.” You bury it,
According to the publication, the attorneys for the City of Atlanta, who also defended Grubbs, were unable to comment on the ruling and Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens’ office refused to comment.
According to the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council’s records, Grubbs began his career with the Atlanta Police Department as a cadet in December 2013. He joined the force after achieving full officer status a year later.
He is recognised as an officer in good standing by the state police certification organisation and has no punishments in his POST records.