Strauss / Hillard File In Federal Court Against Gary Police Department
According to court dockets filed in the U.S. Federal District Court of the Northern District of Indiana a total of 3 Title 42 1983 Civil Rights lawsuits have been filed against the city of Gary, Indiana since the beginning of the year and it’s not even the end of January yet. A total of 9 officers at the Gary Police Department are named across the 3 lawsuits. Four of these are ranked Corporal or above.
We tried to contact Hillard and as of today, he had not returned our attempts to reach him for comment. However, upon research of court records, we find that in February of 2017 Hillard was charged with Disorderly Conduct and the charges were dismissed by the court in June of 2017 in Gary City Court. Hillard is being represented by Attorney Busse in the federal matter. The officers named in Hillard’s claim are Goffin, Peck, and Corporal Komoscar.
Strauss had filed two federal complaints as of Friday and the officers named in those complaints are Chief Richard Allen, Deputy Chief Brian Evans, Corporal James Nielsen,
The video orates that Price responded to a call for an individual Trespassing in a public building in violation of a protection order. Price placed Strauss under arrest for failure to ID. After doing so Price then obtains Strauss\ ID from his pocket and uses that as a basis to charge Strauss with Violation of a Protective Order. Later Strauss was also charged with Battery by Bodily Fluids. The battery charge is refuted by the audio recorded of the incident. As for Strauss’s claim of civil rights violations, in Indiana an individual must only ID for infraction or ordinance violations under Title 34 of the Indiana Code. Since violation of a protective order is a misdemeanor Strauss was not required to identify nor required to incriminate himself under 5th amendment protections. Price arrested Strauss for failure to ID so that he could unlawfully search Strauss and obtain his ID there by violating Strauss’ fourth and fifth amendment rights.
The second incident occurred on September 1st, 2018 where Strauss was filming officers that had responded to a disturbance call nearby his home. Strauss had posted a video of this encounter to YouTube. At all times was Strauss on a public sidewalk or roadway and not committing a crime at the time he was filming and therefore was within his legal right to record police in the course of their official duties according to federal case law upholding that as protected under the first amendment. The officers that are named in this cause of action are Chief Richard Allen, Deputy Chief Brian Evans, Corporal Nielsen, Officer
According to the federal complaint filed on Friday Strauss contends that during the arrest Probationary Officer Kirk crushed the back of Strauss’s neck with his knee, bent Strauss’s left wrist to deliberately cause him pain and stomped his hand. Strauss tried to tell them the cuffs were too tight however Corporal Nielsen nor Officer Kirk would fix them. As seen in the picture below you can see that while Strauss was in the booking room that night you can see massive bruising from where the cuffs were placed on his wrist.
Strauss was asked about his injuries to which he stated that he is currently seeing a doctor for his neck and hand injuries that cause numbness in his left hand and arm. This treatment is ongoing. Strauss also stated that he is also undergoing therapy for his PTSD that has re flared up due to these encounters. Strauss also stated that while he was sitting in jail over the Labor Day break for 3 days he did not
Strauss claims according to court documents that Nielsen, Jones, and Kirk in cooperation with the Chief and Deputy Chief violated his first, fourth, and 14th amendment rights. When Strauss was asked why his 14th amendment rights he stated Officer Jones submitted a knowingly false probable cause affidavit to the court attempting to deny him due process. An attempt was made to contact the Gary Police Department for comment on this matter and they have not returned our phone call.
