ST. LOUIS • Reginald A. Williams owes Michael J.
Banks, his estranged wife and their lawyers almost $1.5 million in damages for
false arrest. A judge says so.
But whether they ever collect depends upon a fine
point of law about whether a suit against Williams — dubbed a "renegade
cop" by the federal prosecutors who sent him to prison — was also
effectively a suit against St. Louis and the Board of Police Commissioners.
The board and city insist they are not liable, and
have plenty of reason to fight: The sum would be triple the largest amount the
Police Board ever paid a single plaintiff.
Banks figures the board's resistance adds insult to
injury for an experience he says cost him his job and marriage, and sent his
life into "a complete downward spiral."
It started with a traffic stop on July 5, 2002, as
Banks was driving home, accompanied by a cousin.
Banks said Williams, a St. Louis police officer,
reached into Banks' pocket, pulled out the $1,100 he had withdrawn from a
credit union, and declared: "This is drug money."
Banks said that when he protested, Williams punched
him in the abdomen and knocked him down. A tow truck driver showed police a gun
found in the car. Banks said he owned the gun but was not carrying it.
A police report said there was cocaine in the car
and that the gun had been tucked in Banks' waistband, Banks said. He and his
lawyer, Bob Herman, said the $1,100 was not mentioned in the report and was
never returned. Prosecutors obtained an indictment accusing Banks of illegal
use of a weapon. He had no prior criminal record.
Two years later, a jury acquitted Banks. But he
said his life was already in tatters.
He was dismissed in 2002 from his maintenance job
at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, he explained, briefly returned but
found that anxiety and hurt feelings made it impossible to continue. For a
while, he lived out of his car.
His wife, with whom he has a son, now 20, with Down
syndrome, separated from him and filed for bankruptcy.
Banks worked for about six months for the Missouri
highway department in 2007 but then left and spent about a year-and-a-half
recuperating from neck surgery. He said that with the recession, and at 62
years old, it has been impossible to find a job since.
Emotionally, he said, "it shook my faith. It
shook my belief that things like that couldn't happen to people."
His wife, Antonia-Rush Banks, 59, told a reporter,
"It turned our world upside down."
By 2005, it was Williams who was on trial, accused
in federal court of robbing drug dealers, falsifying arrests and in one case
sending an innocent man to prison. He was convicted of obstruction of justice
and making false statements, and sentenced to 6½ years in prison.
Banks was among the witnesses to testify against
him.
Looking for justice of his own, Banks hired a
lawyer and in August 2005 filed a lawsuit in St. Louis Circuit Court, seeking
unspecified damages for unconstitutional search and seizure, false arrest,
theft of the $1,100 and loss of consortium.
The issues were simple, but the legal twists to
follow were decidedly not.
PERSONAL AND OFFICIAL
The suit named the Board of Police Commissioners
and city of St. Louis, along with Williams and another officer, Ryan Cousins.
In June 2008, Herman dismissed specific claims
against the Police Board and city from the suit as superfluous. Claims against
Williams and Cousins remained.
A Missouri assistant attorney general represented
Cousins; there is no record of any lawyer representing Williams.
On Jan. 21, 2009, the Police Board agreed to settle
with Banks for $7,500 on his claims against Cousins. It was not to affect his
claims against Williams. Both had been named in their "personal and
official" capacities.
Herman amended the suit to specifically claim a
civil rights violation, and the Police Board and city were sent notices of
intent to hold them liable for Williams' actions as their employee.
Neither they nor Williams had a lawyer at a hearing
April 27, when Circuit Court Judge Michael Mullen entered a default judgment
against Williams in his personal and official capacities. The judge awarded
$900,000 to Banks, $90,000 to his wife and almost $500,000 to the attorneys.
Herman insists that finding Williams at fault in
his official capacity was tantamount to continuing the claims against the
Police Board and the city. He said that case law, including a U.S. Supreme
Court decision, supports his position.
But the board and city have ignored his attempts to
collect, he said. "I've written them letters, I've made phone calls.
Nobody wants to talk."
It is especially frustrating, Herman said, because
"it's important that a municipality not only protect people, but that they
are responsible for damages their employees cause."
On April 6, he filed a separate suit asking for a
court order to force the Police Board and city to pay.
In a statement to a reporter, the Police Board's
lawyer, Mark Lawson, said that under a concept of law called "respondeat
superior," a judgment against an employee alone does not obligate the
employer to pay.
City Counselor Michael Garvin reiterated Lawson's
points and added that the city is a separate entity and would not be liable
even if the Police Board were.
Williams, who resigned from the department before
the judgment was entered, could not be reached for comment and presumably is in
no position to pay almost $1.5 million.
A spokesperson for the attorney general's office,
which would reimburse half of any payment by the state-chartered Police Board
up to $1 million, declined tp comment.
EMPLOYER LIABILITY
Steve Ryals, an attorney who also teaches law at
St. Louis University, suggested that because Williams was held liable for a
civil rights violation in his official capacity, Banks' claim seems to be on
solid legal ground.
"There's more than one U.S. Supreme court case
where they expressly hold and then remind us that when you sue a human being in
their official capacity, you are suing the entity that employs them," he
said.
Ryals has some experience in this. He filed suit
claiming a St. Louis police officer was acting in his official capacity when he
beat a handcuffed Marine Corps veteran, Kenneth Rohrbough.
In June 2010, a federal jury awarded $365,000 in
actual damages and $500,000 in punitive damages to Rohrbough but found in favor
of the Police Board and another officer who had been accused of conspiracy.
The Police Board appealed, then ultimately settled
with Rohrbough for $500,000. It was the largest single payout by the board
since the state stopped paying entire judgments and began reimbursing for only
50 percent in 2005.
Ryals said the settlement in his case made the
question of official or personal capacity moot.
It's all frustrating gibberish to Banks, who
lamented in a recent interview: "We still haven't gotten justice."
Had enough? Write to the Speaker of the House, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515 and demand federal hearings into the police problem in America. Demand mandatory body cameras for cops, one strike rule on abuse, and a permanent DOJ office on Police Misconduct.