Patrons of outdoor concert venue sue, claiming rough treatment by officers

One of the lawsuits was filed by a lieutenant on the Pittsburgh homicide squad.
BURGETTSTOWN, Pa. (AP) -- Concertgoers allege police officers who provide security at a popular entertainment venue have unjustly arrested them, conducted strip searches and roughed them up.
Patrons have filed four federal civil-rights lawsuits -- one of which has been settled -- accusing Hanover Township police officers of abusing their power while working as security guards at the Post-Gazette Pavilion.
A lieutenant on the Pittsburgh homicide squad, Kevin Kraus, filed one of the lawsuits.
But the Hanover Township police department's leader, Lt. William Noble, said his department is trying to keep the peace at the outdoor venue, which brings about 400,000 concertgoers to the rural Washington County township every year.
Noble and eight officers work for the township on a part-time basis. The township every spring hires nearly 100 additional part-time officers for the concert season. The officers are certified by the Municipal Police Officers' Education and Training Commission, he said.
"If you sit on your hands all day and aren't keeping the peace, then what good are you? You have to take the chance of getting sued once in a while," Noble told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review for its Sunday editions.
San Antonio-based Clear Channel Entertainment, which operates the pavilion, hired Hanover Township police to provide security at the venue. The company reimburses the township for the use of cars and police personnel.
Clear Channel Entertainment would not comment for the newspaper's article. The Associated Press could not reach a representative from the company Sunday afternoon.
One complaint
John Zahorchak said off-duty officers accused him and two of his friends of underage drinking in the pavilion's parking lot before a concert in 1998. Zahorchak, now 23, was sitting on a cooler filled with beer when an officer asked him for identification, he said.
The three young men were taken into a trailer, strip searched and cited for underage drinking, Zahorchak said. The citations were reduced to disorderly conduct.
Zahorchak and his friends filed federal lawsuit against Hanover Township, which led to a $60,000 settlement, he said.
The settlement was paid out of a risk pool formed by municipalities, including the township, to cover litigation costs, said township attorney Paul Krepps.
"It was a business decision," Krepps said.
Ticket sales
Thomas W. Manolis, 39, of Lawrence County, filed a federal lawsuit last year after he said he was mistreated by off-duty police at a concert in July 2001.
An undercover security guard offered to sell him two tickets, but Manolis refused and instead sold the officer the two extra tickets he had at face value, Manolis said.
Security guards brought Manolis to a trailer, searched him and cited him for selling tickets without a permit, which carries a $500 fine.
"This was an activity that didn't warrant deprivation of a person's freedom," said James Manolis, who's serving as his brother's attorney.
Marco and Kathryn Lopez said in their federal lawsuit that security guards took their tickets while they attended a concert in June. Marco Lopez said he was attacked by security and taken to a holding pen.
In another suit, Kraus said officers shouted obscenities at him, slammed him against a vehicle and threw him in the back of a squad car. When he said the officers' actions were illegal, he was released, the suit said.
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