by Luther Hall, a police officer in St Louis, was present at a street protest in 2017 where he was working undercover. His disguise was apparently so good that his fellow officers failed to recognize him when they met him mercilessly in the street.
On Monday, Mr Hall was awarded $23.5m for the attack, according to the St. Louis of America.
The incident occurred two days after Jason Stockley, a former St. Louis police officer, was acquitted of the fatal shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith.
Anticipating the possibility of protests following the acquittal, police deployed 200 officers from the “Civil Disobedience Team” that weekend in 2017.
More than 120 people were arrested, including Mr. Hall and his colleague Louis Naes, a white officer who is also embedded with the marchers.
Mr Naes told investigators he was arrested “routinely”, but riot police said “get the f*** off [Mr Hall] like Rodney King”.
In 2018, four St. Louis police officers were indicted on federal charges. Three were charged with beating a colleague undercover, and all four were involved in covering up the incident.
Prosecutors argued that officers Dustin Boone, Randy Hays, and Christopher Myers pushed Mr. Hall to the ground, kicked him, and beat him with metal bats, despite the fact that he was “compliant and not a a physical threat to anyone.”
The indictment also revealed messages sent between the officers in which they expressed their disdain for the protesters and their excitement at the prospect of beating them.
In an exchange on September 15, 2017, just two days before the incident, Myers wrote “Let’s kick some ***,” to which Boone replied “it’ll be fun to kick the hell out of these *** heads .when the sun goes down and no one can tell us apart!!!!”
Judge Joseph Whyte noted during Monday’s hearing that after attacking Mr Hall, Hays sent a text message to another officer, saying that if they hit a protester instead of a police officer, “it wouldn’t be a problem there.”
Mr Whyte said Hays’ messages and actions showed “total disregard” for “a person he believed to be an unarmed African American who had done nothing wrong”, according to the commission. New York Times.
Boone, Hays, and Myers were charged with depriving Mr. Hall of his constitutional rights, and conspiring to obstruct justice. A grand jury indicted the fourth officer, Bailey Colletta, for lying about the incident when she told the panel that Mr Hall was “gently brought to the ground”.
Mr Hall’s groin was damaged after he suffered a kick. The blow was so severe that he was unable to eat during his recovery and lost approximately 20 pounds as a result.
During the criminal trial on February 2, 2022, Mr. Hall gave an emotional account of the attack, KMOV reported.
“Legs, fists, sticks. People picking on me. I was holding him down,” he said. “It felt like [it went on] forever laying there.”
Mr Hall said he knew he had been injured, but could not tell how badly he was injured at the time of the attack.
“I was in a lot of pain,” he said.
He also testified that a tailbone was injured in the attack, and that he needed surgery to repair two herniated discs in his neck and back.
Prosecutors said the three indicted officers lied about the arrest, claiming that Mr. Hall was “resisting and was not compliant,” and indicated that the officers tried to contact him to convince him him not to press charges or take legal action.
Boone was convicted and sentenced to 366 days in jail, while Myers was given a year of probation. Colletta was given three years of probation and two consecutive weekends in jail for lying to the grand jury.
Both Colletta and Hays pleaded guilty to their charges. Hays was sentenced to 52 months in prison and two years of probation, according to NBC5.
Mr. Hall also sued Boone, Hays, and Myers for the attack. He was awarded $5m by the city, and on Monday was awarded $10m in punitive damages, $11m for past and future physical and emotional pain, and nearly $2m in lost wages.
In addition, he was awarded more than $213,000 in delayed retirement and insurance benefits, as well as $366,000 for past and future medical expenses.
The Reverend Darryl Gray, who at the time was community liaison for the Police Ethical Association, which represents mainly Black officers, said he was happy to see Mr. Hall get some justice, and he hopes the incident will show the groups similar complaint. elevated.
“Unfortunately, this happened to Luther [Hall] but it’s not uncommon,” Mr. Gray told the St. Louis of America. “That’s what we’ve been trying to say, hoping that the police will admit that the complaints and concerns we’ve raised over the years are true.
He said he hopes the results of the trial “will uphold what the activist community has been crying out for all these years: accountability”.
The city also agreed to pay $5m to nearly seven dozen people who accused police of violating their rights during the 2017 protests.
