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| NEWS > 14 November 2009 |
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 Article sourced from
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Kansas City Star
14 November 2009
This article appeared in the above title/site.
To view it in its entirity click this link.
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Kansas City Police Department,
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Unified Government to pay $499
Wyandotte County’s Unified Government will pay almost a half million dollars to settle a Kansas City, Kan., police misconduct lawsuit related to a disturbance at a teen’s birthday party.
Seven family members and two friends at the November 2005 party received half of the $499,000 settlement Saturday. They will get the rest next year, lawyers said.
The government is self-insured and did not have enough money in that fund, its lawyer said. The Unified Government commission this month approved issuing general obligation bonds or temporary notes for the money.
The lawsuit alleged that five police officers entered the home without a warrant, hit adults and juveniles with fists and flashlights, sprayed occupants with pepper spray and used racial and sexual slurs.
Plaintiff lawyer Arthur Benson said police violated his clients’ rights. All those at the party were black, and all the police officers were white.
“It’s highly unlikely they would have acted that way if the guests had been white,” Benson said.
Delia York, attorney for the officers and Unified Government, said they admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement.
“It was a business decision made by the Board of Commissioners,” she said.
York noted that if a jury had awarded even $1 in the case, the Unified Government would have had to pay Benson’s legal bills.
As it is, his fees will be paid from the settlement money. Gerene and Bobby Joe Hamilton, their family and two of the party guests will divide the rest.
Police claimed in a filed response that they did nothing wrong and acted with probable cause on such charges as battery of a law officer, obstruction and resisting arrest. All such charges were later dropped.
One of the officers who allegedly sprayed a 14-year-old boy and his grandfather with pepper spray is no longer with the force following other pepper spray incidents.
Former detective Richard Nepote was convicted this year of two counts of misdemeanor battery and DUI. While off duty, he drove drunk in September 2007, ran into the back of a vehicle and sprayed its driver and passenger with pepper spray.
Nepote was suspended from the force in December 2007 and took medical disability in May 2008, according to his testimony in court records. He could not be reached for comment last week.
This August, a judge sentenced Nepote to 48 hours in jail and probation for the DUI and the two batteries and fined him $500.
On Saturday, Benson met with the family and guests and said the whole matter started with bad judgment and got much worse.
Police responded to a noise complaint for an address more than a block away, found no one there and then started looking for a party, he said.
They saw two people leaving the teen’s 18th birthday party in the 5600 block of Crest Drive about 11:30 p.m. and forced their way into the home without a warrant, Benson said.
There was no alcohol or drugs, and the only music came from a small radio, he said.
Vickey Everidge, daughter of the Hamiltons, said she asked an officer why he was ordering the party to end and he said, “Because I say so.”
The party was in a basement area, and a sheet separated an area where Everidge lived. One officer pulled back the sheet, she said. When she told him he had no right to do that, Everidge said the officer pushed her to the floor.
“That’s where it all started,” Everidge said.
According to the family and the lawsuit:
Everidge’s 14-year-old son tried to help her and was punched in the eye. Soon both were on the floor being pummeled by flashlights.
Bobby Hamilton said he came downstairs, called 911 and told police to send other officers because those were out of control.
Then he confronted Nepote, he said.
“I just told him I wanted the badge number of all the police officers before they leave. He sprayed me and then he started spraying everyone else,” including the boy, Hamilton said.
Family members warned police that the boy suffered from asthma, but police refused to wash the spray off the handcuffed boy or allow others to do it.
At one point, the lawsuit states, the boy told Nepote, “You know this ain’t right,” and Nepote hit him on the head with a flashlight.
Hamilton demanded an ambulance, which transported the boy to a hospital.
As for the birthday teen, TyEisha Jennings, granddaughter of the Hamiltons, said she was forced face down in the dirt while an officer put a knee in her back and handcuffed her.
She asked for water, she said, which an officer poured on her on the cold November night. She was taken to jail wearing a short skirt but without shoes or a coat, she said.
The four other officers named in the lawsuit — Mark Wilcox, Wayne Hopkins, Scarlett McConnell and Amy Allen — remain on the force, their lawyer said.
The settlement comes at a difficult time for the Unified Government and police.
The Kansas City, Kan., police union voted last month to forgo a pay raise in 2010 to help the government with an unprecedented $12 million shortfall.
Without that pay freeze, Unified Government officials said, they would have been forced to lay off 16 police officers.
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