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Warren man files lawsuit against police officers for broken arm
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The citizen at the center of a use-of-force incident that led to disciplinary action against two Warren police officers has filed a federal lawsuit against the police department, the officers, jail officials and others.
Jimmy White of Palmyra Road filed the suit last week, seeking monetary damages for the broken arm and other injuries he says he suffered at the hands of officer Chris Martin on May 25, 2015, when officers responded to a home on Atlantic Street for a domestic-violence incident.
Police Chief Eric Merkel said the lawsuit was expected, and he had no comment on it Tuesday.
Martin and officer Jason McCollum were both disciplined after an internal affairs investigation.
Martin was disciplined for not completing a use-of-force report regarding the matter, and McCollum was disciplined for lying about whether White complained that Martin had broken White’s arm.
The lawsuit says White went to his niece’s house on Atlantic and was agitated out of concern for minor children in the home, but he was “not physically violent, armed or under the influence of drugs or alcohol.”
As White walked away from Martin, the officer pinned White against the hood of a parked car and twisted his arm, the suit says. The confrontation caused White’s arm/elbow to be fractured and his wrist to be injured, the suit says.
Martin and McCollum and employees at the Trumbull County Jail “acted as if they did not believe him and/or refused to believe him” when he told them his arm was broken, White said.
White filed a complaint with the police department, which led to the disciplinary actions being taken against McCollum and Martin.
The suit seeks nonspecified monetary damages.
Martin received a two-day suspension. McCollum was fired.
An arbitrator ruled last October that McCollum deserved his job back, though he has not yet returned to work.