Jury Decides Pittsburgh Arrest Was Wrongful But Dismisses Brutality Claim; Both Sides Want Reversal

Jordan Miles was an 18-year-old
high school music student going to his grandmother’s house on a
January evening in 2010 when three undercover cops tried to
approach him, later saying the teenager had looked “suspicious” and
seemed to be “sneaking around.” They also said they thought a
Mountain Dew bottle inside his coat was a gun.

Miles decided to run, saying police hadn’t identified
themselves, but he tripped and fell and police caught up to him.
The cops say they identified themselves, but Miles says they only
asked him where the drugs, money, and gun were. As Radley Balko
noted when
writing about the case, those are just the kind of inquiries
that also signal robberies.

The three officers then beat the teenager up, punching him in
the face, kneeing him in the head, and tearing off a clump of his
hair. As Balko wrote, Miles, who is black, would seem justified to
run whether or not he knew the plainclothes white men approaching
him were actual police officers. Police dispute the account, saying
Miles fought them while they tried to question him and then ran.
They charged Miles with assault, resisting arrest, and other
crimes. They were dismissed by a city magistrate who did not find
the police account believable.

Miles sued. In 2012 a jury rejected Miles’ claim that police
maliciously prosecuted him. A retrial ended in March, with a jury

reaching a split verdict. Miles was awarded $119,000 for being
falsely arrested—enough to cover his medical bills plus $60,000.
Each of the three cops was “assessed” $6,000 in damages, which the
city will be paying. The jury, however, dismissed Miles’ claim of
excessive force by police.

Both sides are now seeking to see the
verdict altered. Miles’ attorneys argue that any force would be
excessive if the initial arrest was false. The city, meanwhile,
wants the award reduced based on a previous settlement over Miles’
medical bills.

After the verdict the attorney for one of the cops said the
police officers did nothing wrong. “Knowing these three
officers−and we’ve talked about it−they’d do it all over again.
They did nothing wrong. They have nothing to be ashamed of,” said
the attorney for Officer Richard Ewing, who now works in
McCandless, Pennsylvania. He dismissed the verdict as a “sympathy”
ruling. The other two cops, Michael Saldutte and David Sisak,
remain on the force in Pittsburgh.