Only Dave Barry could be making this up. I could not, and did not.
The Oakland City Council voted Tuesday to pay more than $832,000 in legal fees to attorneys for two men who successfully sued the city for having their pants pulled down in public by police...
The judge ordered the city to pay $105,000 in compensatory damages to Lucas and $100,000 to Bradshaw.
It doesn't even stop there. The policeman who was caught with other people's pants down?
In November, the judge ordered Mayer ((the police officer defendant)) to pay $25,000 out of his own pocket to Lucas and $15,000 to Bradshaw. Mayer, who retired on disability as a result of the trial, has since asked the city to indemnify him for the $40,000 damage award, court records show.
That's right, he's now retired, presumably drawing a great pension, and
is asking Oakland's taxpayers to indemnify him for his
jackassery.
The story continues below the squiggle; it gets more lurid.
Mayer testified that he had stopped the car for a traffic violation but could not provide a reason for having done so...
Mayer handcuffed Lucas and undid his belt buckle, causing Lucas' pants to fall to his ankles.. Then the officer asked Lucas if he had any drugs in his buttocks, pulled his boxer shorts halfway down and shook them against his genitals as a crowd gathered to watch...
This is unbelievable, disgusting and absurd and all rolled into one. That the City of Oakland is so incompetent as to let a case drag on so as to cost it $1,000,000 instead of settling quickly is unbelievable (the case is from 2005). That the Oakland Police routinely do similar shit to others they stop (and have no doubt, they do), is disgusting. And that the City of Oakland, its City Council and its taxpayers continue to allow the Oakland Police to run amok, generating huge legal settlements (
more than $57,000,000 in the last ten years, far, far more per capita than any other city in the Bay Area, and probably the country) is absurd. And yet it continues.
But now for the $10,000,000 question. If some cop pulling down two random people's pants in an incident barely on anyone's radar cost the city an uncool $1,000,000, just how much is it likely to cost when an Oakland policeman deliberately shoots Scott Olsen in the head, and then another flash-bang grenades people who were trying to get him to medical attention, in violation of their own policies and procedures?
$5,000,000 ? $10,000,000 ? $20,000,000 ?
Are the taxpayers of Oakland ever going to care?
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This just in, in reference to
Shot Attempting to Escape.
Once again the Oakland Police Department has proven themselves to be unworthy of serving and protecting the community of Oakland after Officer Cesar Garcia shot twenty-four year old Tony Jones, a cousin of Oscar Grant, in the back during a traffic stop. In response, Jones has filed a federal civil rights suit worth $10 million against the city of Oakland earlier today.