Taxpayers in Elizabeth, NJ were forced to spend $250,000 as part of a settlement with a Philadelphia man who suffered “significant injuries” to his neck and spine during a beat down by armed government workers, according to his attorney. One of the armed government workers admitted in testimony that he never officially reported that he hit the man with a metal flashlight.
Elizabeth settled Jerome Wright’s lawsuit in October. The suit claimed armed government workers used excessive force – including chemical spray, kicks, punches – then “fabricated” a police report in an effort to “cover up” their actions.
Armed government worker Rui Xavier admitted in court testimony he left facts out of his arrest report: Jerome Wright’s hands were up in the air, Xavier struck Wright with a flashlight and kicked him.
Here’s the video.
Xavier said he “oversaw” facts left out of his report when he was questioned in court and shown a bystander’s video.
Xavier and the other armed government workers who arrested Wright remain employed as armed government workers, pension records show.
Wright’s settlement brings that total to more than $43 million.
I find a great deal missing from these reports in that no one addresses, not even the lawyers for the plaintiff, that these people will suffer from these injuries for the rest of their lives. The quarter mil that’s paid out will go to the state and feds in taxes and the lawyer will get maybe half of it so the guy basically ends up with next to nothing and as his life goes by he’ll be paying for it mentally and physically till the day he dies more than likely.
I was hurt in a wreck 4 years ago and got nothing from it except medical bills and now, a large haunting from the injuries that won’t be fixed….ever. Oh, I guess they could severe my spinal cord at the base of my head and that would fix the injuries. So, I’ve been off work for a week due to these bad boys coming home to visit in a big way and going to PT and seemingly getting worse. Nope, nobody’s paying for this except me and you, the taxpayer, since it’s on medicare. This is one hell of a retirement that just keeps on giving. I tried the old sitting at the house(not by choice….but insurance now discriminates by age so a trucking job isn’t the easiest thing to get past 65) and fishing now and again but that doesn’t pay the bills and neither does SS. We recently lost a co-worker simply because he was 84 and now the guy who doesn’t miss a beat every day who is 80 is waiting for the other shoe to fall….and it will. I recently rode with him to the truck stop and not a sound came from the transmission and he rolled into the throttle, the same way I drive. The other drivers I’ve ridden with do the old crunch, grind, stab the throttle sort of thing.
I’m not much for not getting something done to begin with so getting back on the horse and going for it again is just my nature. Unfortunately, sitting around for an unknown period doesn’t guarantee you a truck when you next feel like working. After the first day of PT I drove home using the heels of my hands since my fingers hurt too bad to grip the wheel. Ever see that play out in a big rig? Neither have I.
There is a local hero that has already cost taxpayers $750,000 for settling claims against him. And yup, he is still on the job. He is well known for being a hard a** on traffic “violations”. He is one of the hero’s that made national news a year or two ago for smashing that guys window out (a passenger not the driver, so he had no “legal” right to even ask for ID). That 750k figure, by the way was for before smashing the window out, guessing there will be a payout on that too.
And yup, he was trying to get the guy to ID himself. The guy didn’t want to ID himself because he had an outstanding warrant for a drug charge. Ironically the hero didn’t even find that warrant, making it an even more pointless exercise, the issuing department only heard about it after reading about it in the newspaper……