The city of Chicago has settled a police brutality lawsuit with a woman who lost an unborn child after being repeatedly shocked by a Taser-wielding officer.
According to the Chicago Tribune, the award is still pending the approval of City Council – a requirement in cases when litigants are due to receive more than $100,000.
While the city hasn’t yet gone public with any numbers, the still-due approval from City Council indicates that Elaina Turner and her fiancé, Ulysses Green, are expecting at least a six-figure check.
The lawsuit stems from an encounter Turner and Green had with police outside their home.
Officers had showed up to tow Green’s van, despite the objections of its owners.
A verbal argument broke out, with the couple trying to argue that law enforcement had no legitimate reason to tow their van.
Eventually, Turner and Green gave in, but not before Turner asked whether she could receive three children’s car seats from the vehicle, as well as a pair of her fiancé’s work boots.
She approached a door even as officers told her to stand down. An officer slapped the phone she was recording the interaction with out of her hands, before grabbing her wrist. Another cop on the scene gave a command to use a Taser on Turner, even though she was pregnant and restrained.
Officer Patrick Kelly then purportedly shocked her three separate times with his Taser, including after she’d already been felled to the ground.
Kelly and his colleagues then arrested Turner for resisting and obstructing – they also filed a separate assault charge against Green twelve days later.
Within a week, Elaina Turner was in the hospital, bleeding profusely. After consulting with physicians, she was told she’d miscarried, probably as a consequence of being thrown to the ground and electrocuted by Kelly.
The incident wasn’t the first complaint Officer Patrick Kelly has received – neither, for that matter, is it the first time the city of Chicago has had to settle a lawsuit due to his misbehavior.
Kelly has been the subject of 27 separate investigations into his doings both on-duty and off-. The 36-year old patrolman has cost Chicago $671,000 in settlements, including $100,000 to a man who accused Kelly of making a false arrest and then holding a gun to his head.
The Chicago Tribune reports that, as of March, the city had paid $2.4 million to private attorneys to defend lawsuits arising from Kelly’s misdeeds.
The Tribune also recounts how Kelly had been found mentally unfit for duty twice, was arrested on two separate occasions, and accused of domestic violence.
The Chicago Police Department has recently re-opened an investigation into the death of Kelly’s childhood friend, Michael LaPorta, who was shot in the back of the head with the rogue officer’s service weapon in 2010.
LaPorta’s death was originally ruled a suicide, with Kelly being kept on the force despite his history of violence and misconduct.
Sources
City Hall has question about judge’s order to turn over records
City settles lawsuit against Chicago cop who struck pregnant woman with Taser
Woman Claims She Had Miscarriage After Cop Used Stun Gun Against Her
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