Wednesday, March 31, 1999

Shooting victim's family sues city, officers

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Civil-rights action seeks funeral costs, unspecified damages

BY BEN L. KAUFMAN
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Carpenter

McCurley

Miller

        Michael Demonn Carpenter's family Tuesday sued Cincinnati and two young police officers who shot the Mount Airy resident during a Northside traffic stop.

        Their civil-rights complaint, filed by attorney Kenneth Lawson in U.S. District Court, seeks unspecified damages plus funeral and burial expenses.

        The suit says District 5 officers violated Mr. Carpenter's Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizure or excessive force and his 14th Amendment right to due process.

City declines comment
        Peter Heile, deputy city solicitor, said the suit was being reviewed and any comment would be premature.

        Mr. Carpenter, 30, was shot in the head and right arm early March 19. He died in a hospital.

        Officers Michael B. Miller II, 24, and Brent McCurley, 27, said they stopped Mr. Carpenter's borrowed Pontiac because it had expired plates and Officer Miller tried to pull him from the car when Mr. Carpenter refused to get out.

        They said Mr. Carpenter accelerated, dragging Officer Miller about 15 feet, and appeared to be ready to back over Officer McCurley. That's when they fired, the officers said.

"Position of surrender'
        Not so, Mr. Lawson said, because the angle and direction of the bullet wounds indicate Mr. Carpenter was “in a position of surrender.”

        Using language common to civil-rights complaints against police, Mr. Lawson said the shooting represents:

        • A “continuing pervasive pattern of civil rights abuses” by Cincinnati officers against residents.

        • “Deliberate (city) conduct in establishing policy and custom that encourages and acquiesces in Fourth and 14th Amendment rights violations.”

        • “Negligent hiring of both defendants Miller and McCurley” and “deliberate indifference” to police training and discipline.

        • Unjustified lethal force when Mr. Carpenter posed no “immediate threat of serious physical harm” to the officers or others.

        Further, the complaint said, Cincinnati tolerates excessive force and justifies unconstitutional police conduct “by alleging, after the fact, that they were acting in self-defense.”

        Echoing similar complaints, Mr. Lawson said Cincinnati officers “are inadequately trained and/or supervised in how to apprehend and arrest suspects or subdue individuals who are stopped for traffic violations.”

        In interviews, Mr. Lawson and Keith Fangman, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said they knew of no one who ever proved such allegations against the city or Cincinnati police officers in court.

        Moreover, Mr. Fangman said, Cincinnati's “use of force” is one of the lowest for comparable cities and Tuesday's suit was “frivolous.”

Parents and daughter
        Mr. Lawson filed the suit for Mr. Carpenter's parents, Elsie and Fred Carpenter, and the younger Mr. Carpenter's daughter, Tyeisha Nichole Carpenter.

        The shooting is being probed by police homicide and internal-investigation units and the city's independent Office of Municipal Investigations.

       

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