Trial set in black man’s Pittsburgh police beating

Trial set in black man’s Pittsburgh police beating

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Opening statements were scheduled today in the retrial of three Pittsburgh police officers — one who has since quit the force — on civil rights claims that they wrongly arrested and beat a young black performing arts student in January 2010.

A federal jury ruled in August 2012 that the officers didn’t maliciously prosecute Jordan Miles but deadlocked on whether the officers used excessive force or wrongfully arrested Miles, then an 18-year-old honors student.

A jury of four white men and four white women will hear evidence starting today in hopes of arriving at a verdict on the two deadlocked claims.

Miles was arrested after the officers — who were working an aggressive, plainclothes detail meant to target drug dealers and other street crime — claimed they thought they saw him prowling on a frigid night with a gun bulging in his coat pocket. Police contend the gun turned out to be a soda bottle, though Miles denies having even that. He said he wasn’t prowling but was merely walking from his mother’s house to his grandmother’s, one street over, while talking to a girl on his cellphone.

The officers have repeatedly denied wrongdoing. They acknowledge Miles was punched and kicked but only because he allegedly fought with them.