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Youngstown has settled a police excessive force lawsuit for $72,000
YOUNGSTOWN
The city has settled a lawsuit with a Washington, D.C., man who contended police used excessive force and publicly humiliated him when they arrested him in connection with a restaurant robbery he didn’t commit in 2013.
City council will consider an ordinance today to authorize the board of control to pay the city’s $50,000 deductible to HCC Public Risk Claim Service, its insurance company.
The settlement with Samuel Abutair, the plaintiff, is for $72,000 with HCC paying the amount not covered by the deductible, said city Law Director Martin Hume.
The settlement includes “no admission of liability” by the city, Hume said.
Abutair filed the lawsuit Oct. 3, 2014, in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court listing the city, police Capt. Kevin Mercer, Lt. Brian Welsh, Officer Mohammad Award and five unidentified defendants.
In arresting Abutair on Oct. 8, 2013, in connection with a Sept. 30, 2013, robbery, police inflicted cuts and bruises on Abutair’s face “beyond the scope of the reasonable use of force,” the civil lawsuit says.
When they brought Abutair to the police station, the investigating detective told them they had arrested the wrong person, the complaint says.
In a “purely vindictive prosecution,” police then charged Abutair with obstructing official business, the complaint says, adding that a jury acquitted Abutair of that charge and the prosecutor apologized in court for bringing it.
The civil case was scheduled to go to trial Feb. 23.
Also today, council will be asked to end its contract with Waste Management Inc. to handle its residential garbage collect effective April 30.
The company has handled that work for the city’s 22,000 residential trash customers since April 1, 2014, getting paid $8.45 a month per customer.
The city has received complaints from residents about service though it recently resolved an issue with Waste Management over scheduling, said Charles Shasho, deputy director of the city’s public-works department.
The city should be able to get a lower price than the current one and is interested in upgrades such as providing each customer with a large trash bin that can be emptied in to a garbage truck easier, he said.
The city’s contract with Waste Management was for two years with a two-year option. The contract expires March 31, but the company has agreed to a one-month extension, Hume said.