PHILADELPHIA – The Borough of Eddystone and a police officer are seeking to dismiss excessive force litigation from the brother of a YouTube video blogger, who had alleged the defendants approached his vehicle with guns drawn, initiated a high-speed chase, and collided with his vehicle resulting in an accident and injury.
Imeen Barnes of Philadelphia first filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on Jan. 2 versus Eddystone Borough, Eddystone Police Officers John/Jane Doe 1-10, Ridley Township, Ridley Township Police Officer Shane Laird, Ridley Township Police Officers John/Jane Doe 1-10, Darby Township, Darby Township Police Officer Kevin Urzi, Darby Township Police Officers, John/Jane Doe 1-10, Glenolden Borough and Glenolden Borough Police Officers John/Jane Doe 1-10.
“On or about Sunday, Jan. 2, 2022, at approximately 11:30 p.m., plaintiff was a passenger in his brother’s vehicle. Plaintiff’s brother, Rubin Simmons, is a YouTube vlogger who records and comments on, among other things, cars and car rallies. At the above date and time, there were approximately 100 cars in the parking lot of Shop Rite in Eddystone, Pennsylvania, watching drivers perform tricks and other driving feats. During this, plaintiff was in the front passenger seat of his brother’s vehicle, filming the various drivers with his brother’s camera,” the suit said.
“At the above date, time and location, Eddystone Police Officer John Doe 1, and others, went to the parking lot in a police vehicle marked ‘Eddystone Police’ and started clearing out the spectators in the parking lot. The cars in the parking lot formed a line and exited the parking lot, turning both left and right as they exited past Eddystone Police Officer John Doe 1. Despite allowing every vehicle before them to leave without incident, as plaintiff’s brother approached the exit, Eddystone Police Officer John Doe 1 approached the vehicle and pointed his firearm at plaintiff. Plaintiff’s brother continued driving out of the parking lot, following traffic.”
The suit added that the police defendants gave chase with their lights and sirens activated, before an unmarked Dodge Charger and later, a marked Darby Township police vehicle, struck the plaintiff brother’s vehicle from behind and caused him to panic.
Furthermore, the repeated strikes caused the plaintiff’s brother’s vehicle to spin out, deploy airbags, enter the intersection of Chester Pike and East South Avenue, and get struck by a bystander who was attempting to drive through the intersection, which caused the plaintiff to become injured.
“Now that plaintiff’s brother’s vehicle was stopped, defendants Laird, Urzi, Eddystone Police Officers John/Jane Doe 1-10, Ridley Township Police Officers John/Jane Doe 1-10, Darby Township Police Officers John/Jane Doe 1-10, and/or Glenolden Borough Police Officers John/Jane Doe 1-10 forcibly removed plaintiff’s brother from his car and repeatedly tasered him and beat him bloody in view of plaintiff. Defendants Laird, Urzi, Eddystone Police Officers John/Jane Doe 1-10, Ridley Township Police Officers John/Jane Doe 1-10, Darby Township Police Officers John/Jane Doe 1-10 and/or Glenolden Borough Police Officers John/Jane Doe 1-10 also forcibly removed plaintiff from the vehicle, at gunpoint, using racial slurs and threatening to kill him,” the suit stated.
“Defendants Laird, Urzi, Eddystone Police Officers John/Jane Doe 1-10, Ridley Township Police Officers John/Jane Doe 1-10, Darby Township Police Officers John/Jane Doe 1-10 and/or Glenolden Borough Police Officers John/Jane Doe 1-10 then struck plaintiff repeatedly, causing him injury. At no point did any defendant attempt to stop the assault of plaintiff. Defendants Laird, Urzi, Eddystone Police Officers John/Jane Doe 1-10, Ridley Township Police Officers John/Jane Doe 1-10, Darby Township Police Officers John/Jane Doe 1-10, and/or Glenolden Borough Police Officers John/Jane Doe 1-10 then arrested plaintiff and gave him a warning for violation of curfew, even though he was with an adult relative. Plaintiff was eventually released to his parents.”
Barnes claimed to suffer a superficial head injury, acute pain his in left shoulder and left knee, multiple abrasions, strain of muscle, fascia and tendon of his left shoulder and upper arm and segmental and somatic dysfunction of his cervical spine in the incident.
UPDATE
Defendants Borough of Eddystone and Laird motioned to dismiss the case on March 20, countering that the plaintiff had failed to state claims upon which relief could be granted.
“Count IV of plaintiff’s complaint asserts an identical Monell complaint against all of the Boroughs and the Townships. However, plaintiff’s claim is devoid of facts or substance to support his claim of unconstitutional municipal polices, practices or customs or of failure to train or discipline officers that results in the unconstitutional use of excessive force. Plaintiff fails to allege any specific training that was deficient or absent that could have a causal nexus to plaintiff’s alleged injuries. There is no evidence asserted of any custom, much less a permanent and well-settled custom, at Eddystone Borough that its supervisory employees authorized the use of excessive force or that the municipality in any way encouraged its police officers to use excessive force. The assertions are all in the nature of formulistic recitals that are not sufficient to state a viable municipal liability claim,” the dismissal motion stated, in part.
“Plaintiff has failed to allege facts to establish personal involvement by defendant, Shane Laird, in unconstitutional conduct and does not even know where he works [Note: Laird actually works for the Eddystone Police Department]. They fail to attribute any specific acts of excessive force to him or that he knew or could have intervened in any other potential excessive force events or was in any supervisory capacity. Plaintiff…claims that Laird and all other Does (40) from all departments removed him from the vehicle at gunpoint using racial slurs and threatening to kill him. He further claims they all then struck him repeatedly causing him injury and no defendant attempted to stop the assault of plaintiff.
It is a preposterous statement that more than 40 individuals pulled him from the vehicle and all struck him repeatedly. He does not describe in any way any officer who had an encounter with him or reasonably allege who did what and when. This is clearly another example of an improper shotgun pleading. There are no facts plead that defendant Laird was personally involved in this allegedly excessive use of force. There are simply no facts that would give rise to the plausible inference that defendant Laird employed excessive force toward the plaintiff. Plaintiff failed to satisfy the requirements of Iqbal because he fails to plead ‘factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.’ There is no claim that defendant Shane Laird was a supervisor of any other or Doe defendants to suggest a claim of supervisory liability.”
The motion added that the plaintiff had not properly pled his conspiracy claim by showing, (1) “A combination of two or more persons acting with a common purpose to do an unlawful act or to do a lawful act by unlawful means or for an unlawful purpose”, (2) “An overt act done in pursuance of the common purpose” and (3) “Actual legal damage” – and continued that a more definite statement under Rule 12(e) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure was needed, in order to properly plead and elaborate on the information related to all counts.
For counts of excessive force under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, failure to intervene, conspiracy, violating Monell, supervisory liability, plus state law claims of assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress and conspiracy, the plaintiff is seeking, jointly and severally, damages in an amount sufficient to fully and adequately compensate plaintiff, punish and deter defendants and others similarly-situated to defendants, plus interest, costs, attorney’s fees and all other appropriate relief.
The plaintiff is represented by Jason E. Parris of Abramson & Denenberg, in Philadelphia.
The defendants are represented by Suzanne McDonough and Mary Pawlowski of Holsten Associates in Media, John P. Gonzales of Marshall Dennehey in Philadelphia, plus Andrew J. Bellwoar of Bellwoar Kelly, in West Chester.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania case 2:24-cv-00014
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com