Thursday, December 16, 1999
Suit claims police hurt ailing man
Camera captured incident in store
BY MARIE McCAIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Convenience store camera records removal of Robert L. Wittenberg.
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A 68-year-old man with Alzheimer's disease is suing the city of Cincinnati, Cincinnati police and a District 2 officer he accuses of body-slamming him a month ago at a Madisonville convenience store.
The civil suit seeks more than $2 million and was filed Wednesday in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court on behalf of Robert L. Wittenberg of Silverton and his wife, Mary. It accuses Officer Robert J. Hill III of battery, false imprisonment, excessive use of force and other infractions.
The incident was captured by the store's surveillance camera about 8 p.m. on Nov. 14.
Robert Wittenberg
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Mr. Wittenberg was hospitalized in intensive care for four days with a fractured pelvis, broken vertebrae and ribs, lacerations to his liver and a collapsed lung, said his attorney, Donald Moore Jr. of Anderson Township.
Mr. Moore said his client now resides in a nursing home because he is unable to walk.
Officer Hill remains on active duty, police said.
Lt. Ray Ruberg, public information officer for the Cincinnati Police Division, said an internal investigation has been going on since shortly after the incident at the United Dairy Farmers store at 5311 Madison Road.
Keith Fangman, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, Queen City Lodge, said police were responding to a call of an intoxicated subject with an electric drill who was threatening the safety of customers and refusing to leave the store.
“Put yourself in the position of the police officer for just a moment,” Mr. Fangman said. “That is going to cause a heightened sense of danger for any police officer.”
The call was placed by a UDF clerk around 8 p.m. UDF officials could not be reached for comment.
Mr. Moore said his client had not been drinking and was in a confused state when officers approached him at the store's ice cream counter.
Mr. Wittenberg, a retired pipe fitter, had entered the store with a nonfunctioning drill and a paint brush, Mr. Moore said. He had been doing yard work before wandering from his house, 2 miles from the store.
Police said Officer Hill and three other officers responded to the call of a person with a weapon inside the store.
According to a written transcript of the radio dispatch, officers were informed that a man in a dirty, white T-shirt and blue jeans was “extremely intoxicated, carrying a drill and paint brush, threatening to hurt people ... refusing to leave.”
The transcript says officers took him into custody and took him to the Wittenbergs' Silverton home. Mr. Wittenberg was not arrested.
Videotape obtained by Mr. Moore from the UDF's surveillance camera showed Officer Hill approach Mr. Wittenberg from behind. Mr. Wittenberg's hands were in front of him, on the glass bordering the store's ice cream counter.
The tape showed that he carried a drill either in the crook of his arm or in a pocket. As Officer Hill reached around Mr. Wittenberg and clasped his wrists, the drill fell to the floor.
Officer Hill then lifted Mr. Wittenberg off his feet and flipped him face down on the floor and covered him with his body.
Because the surveillance video had no sound, it is unknown what was said.
At that point, another officer appeared in the video frame and the two handcuffed Mr. Wittenberg, lifted him and escorted him out of the store.
The suit claims police brought him home at about 9 p.m. that night and told Mrs. Wittenberg her husband had fallen. In addition, the suits says, police told her he didn't cooperate when they were putting him in a patrol car.
“I found that unusual since he was always glad to see the police,” she said. “He thought they were his friends.”
Mrs. Wittenberg told her attorney she didn't notice anything physically wrong with her husband until the next day when he couldn't walk. She called an ambulance and he was taken to University Hospital, where his injuries were diagnosed as being inconsistent with a fall, the lawsuit stated.
“I'm from the old school,” Mrs. Wittenberg said. “The police are supposed to be your friends. But not anymore. They destroyed my best friend.”
Mr. Wittenberg had wandered from his house previously and been brought home by police. Officer Hill, Mr. Moore said, had escorted Mr. Wittenberg home on one of those occasions.
“This type of action is awful and inexcusable,” Mr. Moore said, adding that Mr. Wittenberg has little recollection of the events that took place Nov. 14.
“I want justice for my client. I am making this suit public ... so that this won't happen to anyone else.”
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