Main evidence in civil rights case is video of police striking drug suspect in alley outside of tavern in November 2019. Video was made public in July 2020 in court and by Erie Times-News.
A surveillance video of an Erie police officer repeatedly punching a suspect in the head and face in November 2019 launched an internal investigation and spurred renewed requests for a civilian review board for the police.
Two years later, the incident has spurred a federal lawsuit claiming excessive force.
The suspect, Lee McLaurin, has sued the city of Erie and five Erie police officers and an Erie County detective. They are the officers McLaurin said participated in his arrest, which occurred in an alley beside Sophia’s Tavern, 514 Cherry St., at about 12:45 a.m. on Nov. 23, 2019.
The suit claims the officers violated McLaurin's civil rights by punching him at least eight times, slamming him to the ground and knocking him unconscious. The suit claims the city violated his rights by allowing for "a culture of a lack of accountability" that has created a "policy and custom of turning a blind eye towards police misconduct."
Police charged McLaurin, 34, with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of cocaine. He pleaded guilty in February and is serving a sentence in state prison.
The five-count suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Erie, claims that the officers violated McLaurin's rights by using excessive force, which McLaurin contends amounted to assault and battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The suit also claims that the police's official accounts of the arrest, as contained in officers' field case reports, are contrary to what can be seen on the surveillance video, taken outside the bar.
The police reports claim that McLaurin was resisting arrest. But according to the suit, the video shows he was compliant and that he was struck while other officers were restraining him.
"Mr. McLaurin never engaged in any action which could possibly justify punching him in the head and face at least eight times, while his arms were restrained by two other officers," the suit claims. It claims the police officers' "conduct was wanton, reckless, dangerous and violated standards for police conduct," the suit claims.
The suit claims McLaurin as a result of the police conduct during the arrest has suffered panic attacks, night terrors, difficulty sleeping, flashbacks to the assault, depression and anxiety.
The suit seeks damages of at least $75,000 on each count, with $75,000 the typical threshold amount for a lawsuit to be filed in federal court.
The suit names as defendants the city; Erie police Officer Nicholas Strauch, who struck McLaurin, according to the video and information presented at a pretrial court hearing in McLaurin's criminal case; Erie police officers Nick Bernatowicz and Joshua Allison, who pointed his service gun at McLaurin during the arrest, according to the suit and video; Erie police sergeants James Bielak and Ryan Onderko; Todd Manges, a detective with the Erie County District Attorney's Office; and several unidentified Erie police officers, listed with the name of John Doe. The officers are all part of the county’s Gun Task Force, according to information presented at the court hearing.
Suit criticizes Schember
Erie lawyer John Mizner filed the suit on Wednesday, making it the latest civil action over claims of excessive force that he has filed against the Erie police in U.S. District Court in Erie. The case has been assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Richard A. Lanzillo, according to a docket entry on Wednesday.
The city of Erie will get a chance to respond to the suit in court. Once the city is served with the suit, lawyers will review it and prepare a response for court, City Solicitor Ed Betza said on Wednesday. In terms of police discipline, the city typically keeps such actions private, though the lawsuit could force the city to provide Mizner information on any internal review.
The city since April 2020 has been on notice that McLaurin intended to sue, and McLaurin also filed a citizen's complaint with the Erie police. Mizner filed the federal suit just ahead of the expiration of the two-year statute of limitations.
The video, which has no sound, became public at the pretrial hearing in McLaurin's drug case in Erie County Common Pleas Court in July 6, 2020. The Erie Times-News published the video that day.
Two days later, the Erie Times-News reported that Mayor Joe Schember said he watched the video and pledged a thorough city investigation into the incident, which Erie Police Chief Dan Spizarny at the time said was the subject of an internal affairs investigation.
In his comments on the video in July 2020, Schember said: “We will have a fair and unbiased picture of what happened here. And if we think there’s something that was done inappropriately, we should take some action.”
McLaurin's lawsuit claims that the city did not punish the officers involved in his arrest. The suit quotes Schember's comments to the Erie Times-News in July 2020, and the suit criticizes Schember and the city for taking what the suit claims is "lack of action" against the police.
Despite the comments from Schember and other city officials, the suit claims, "upon information and belief, the City of Erie still has not taken any meaningful corrective or disciplinary action against the officers involved in the brutal beating of Mr. McLaurin."
"Not only is this lack of action an injustice to Mr. McLaurin," the suit claims, "it is a clear signal to City of Erie police officers that there are no negative consequences for brutally beating a restrained man until he is unconscious, even when the beating is captured on camera, and even when the beating becomes an issue of public attention in the local news media."
Added scrutiny of police
The video of McLaurin's arrest became public at a time when the Erie police were under increased scrutiny. Though the arrest was in 2019, the public release of the video came weeks after the nationwide protests over the case of George Floyd, the Black Minneapolis resident who was killed in police custody in that city on May 25, 2020.
During a protest in Perry Square on May 30, 2020, an Erie police officer was caught on video kicking a seated protester during what police described as a riot.
Schember announced on June 15, 2020, that the officer who kicked the protester had been suspended for three days and would remain on desk duty until he completed sensitivity training. Schember declined to name the officer, though his name was made public as the result of a lawsuit that the protester, Hannah Silbaugh filed in federal court. The officer is Sgt. Marc Nelson, and the suit is pending against him, the city and other defendants. Mizner does not represent the plaintiff in that case.
Following incidents including the release of the video in the case of McLaurin, who is black, the Erie chapter of the NAACP wrote a letter to Schember in mid-July 2020 demanding changes in police policy. They included bias training for local law enforcement; public release of the names of any police officer accused of misconduct; and the creation of an independent civilian review board that would investigate police misconduct.
Several City Council members had already said they would work with Schember's administration to form the review board.
In response to the letter, Schember said he and his staff would meet to talk about "whether we can move forward with some of the suggestions." Schember, who was reelected to a second four-year term in November, has made addressing racism a main goal of his administration.
Video presented in court
The surveillance video in the McLaurin case was presented as the main evidence at the pretrial hearing in McLaurin's case on July 6, 2020. McLaurin's criminal defense lawyer, Gene Placidi, at the hearing argued that police had no probable cause to detain and search McLaurin, and Placidi asked for the evidence in the case to be suppressed.
The video footage shows two officers attempting to control McLaurin’s arms as they work to arrest him in an alley. Early in the confrontation, another officer approaches and begins striking McLaurin in the head. McLaurin then falls to the ground. The officer was identified in court as Strauch.
At the hearing, Officer Allison, who is named in the federal suit, testified that McLaurin refused to comply with officers’ commands and would not release his arms. He said the strikes, which he said came from Strauch, helped the other officers get McLaurin onto the ground, where a group of officers worked for several minutes to get handcuffs onto him.
Allison testified that he recovered a small plastic baggie containing a white substance from McLaurin’s right pocket. The substance, 2.1 grams of white powder, tested positive for cocaine, Assistant District Attorney Emily Downing said at the pretrial hearing.
Dowling said the evidence showed McLaurin resisted arrest.
“He accelerated this interaction,” Downing said in court. “If he had complied, none of this would have happened.”
Erie County Judge Daniel Brabender ruled against the defense's request to suppress the evidence. The prosecution continued its case against McLaurin, who pleaded guilty on Feb. 9.
Brabender gave McLaurin a sentence of time served, accounting for the nearly 15 months he had spent in prison since his arrest, and granted McLaurin immediate parole.
However, because of his conviction in the November 2019 case, McLaurin was recommitted to state prison for violating his parole in a drug case in which he was sentenced to state prison in 2018, according to state prison records. He is incarcerated at the State Correctional Institution at Mahanoy near Frackville, about 45 minutes southwest of Wilkes-Barre.
In the case of the November 2019 arrest, Erie County District Attorney Jack Daneri did not open a criminal investigation into McLaurin's treatment as captured on the video.
“I viewed the video," Daneri said on July 9, 2020. "I know the circumstances under which the arrest was made, and so at this time, no, I’m not considering a criminal investigation."
Original Article By: Ed Palattella at epalattella@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ETNpalattella.