Robbie Tolan’s Police Brutality Case Might Be Precedent-Setting — But So What?
When the U.S. Supreme Court revived Robbie Tolan’s lawsuit against the Bellaire police officer who shot him on December 31, 2008, many legal observers were stunned.
The High Court had unexpectedly decided to weigh in on whether lower courts had rightly thrown out Tolan’s lawsuit against Bellaire Police Sgt. Jeffrey Cotton, who shot Tolan in the chest on his parents’ front lawn as he returned home from an early-morning run to Jack in the Box with his cousin. Tolan was unarmed. In a unanimous ruling, the justices said that lower courts hadn’t given adequate consideration to Tolan’s claims against Cotton, who, due to another officer’s error (following Tolan’s car into his parents’ neighborhood and mistakenly punching Tolan's license plate into his computer with one number off), believed he was responding to a potential stolen vehicle.
When Cotton arrived at the scene as backup, another officer already had Tolan and his cousin face down on the ground at gunpoint. According to the Tolans, Cotton then proceeded to get into a verbal altercation with Marian Tolan, Robbie’s mother. They claim Cotton physically grabbed Tolan’s mother (which he admitted to in a deposition) and then slammed her into a garage door with such force she fell to the ground (which Cotton has denied) when she wouldn’t stop arguing that the car was theirs, that this was their home, and that police had to be mistaken. They claim that, when Robbie Tolan pushed his chest up off the ground to look at Cotton and say, “Get your fucking hands off my mother,” the officer turned, pulled his pistol, and shot at Tolan three times, striking him once in the chest.
*But when it comes to police shootings, even cases that set precedent don’t always succeed at trial. After a six-year legal battle and a successful trip to the U.S. Supreme Court, Robbie Tolan signed a settlement agreement with the officer that shot him just as the case was set to go to trial on Tuesday. According to that agreement, Cotton and the Bellaire Police Department will admit no wrongdoing, and the City of Bellaire will pay Tolan just $110,000, a sum that is certainly eclipsed by the cost of litigating a case like Tolan’s for six years.
Sgt. Cotton, instead of being reprimanded in any way, was promoted to lieutenant by the Bellaire Police Department, on which he still serves."
http://www.houstonpress.com/news/robbie-tolan-s-police-brutality-case-might-be-precedent-setting-but-so-what-7769001
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