CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Another
Parkersburg man has filed a federal lawsuit against the city police department
and Parkersburg Mayor Bob Newell based on allegations that the mayor instituted
a wink-and-nod policy that called for police to beat dissenting suspects.
Jerry Seabolt said in the lawsuit,
filed Wednesday, that the unwritten policy that Newell allegedly announced
during a department meeting several years ago caused an officer to assault him
while he was detained on public-intoxication charges last year -- an incident
that spurred a federal investigation and criminal charges against the officer.
On Oct. 15, four officers approached
and arrested Seabolt after receiving complaints that he was drunk outside of a
Parkersburg Dollar General, according to the lawsuit, written by John Bryan,
Seabolt's lawyer.
"The defendant had glassy,
bloodshot eyes and an odor of an alcoholic beverage," Bryan writes in the
lawsuit, citing the original criminal complaint filed in Wood County Magistrate
Court. "While talking with the defendant under arrest, he became
aggressive towards officers and had to be forcibly handcuffed."
The four officers were not identified
in the lawsuit. One of the men was believed to be a field supervisor, the
lawsuit states.
At one point, another officer,
described as larger with short blond hair, began acting overly aggressive
toward Seabolt, the lawsuit states.
"If you don't shut up, I'm going
to punch you in the mouth," the officer told Seabolt, according to the
lawsuit.
After Seabolt was cuffed, three
officers slammed his head into the hood of a police cruiser as the supervisor
stood by and watched, the lawsuit states.
When the officers placed Seabolt in
the cruiser, the blond-haired man approached a witness to the incident, David
Hastings, and said, "Do you hang out with this mother f---?" because
"he's getting ready to get an ass-whooping," the lawsuit states.
While detained in the Wood County
holding center, Seabolt allegedly assumed a fighting stance toward the
officers.
At that point, Sgt. Joshua A. Vensel
struck Seabolt with a closed fist to the head, according to the original
criminal complaint, signed by Patrolman B.J. Depue.
Surveillance cameras captured the punch, according to the
lawsuit. Seabolt was immediately rendered unconscious.
Seabolt, who had to be taken to the hospital with a swollen jaw
and abrasions to the head, said that he did not assault the officers while in
the processing room.
The Wood County Prosecutor's Office and the West Virginia State
Police soon opened an inquiry into Vensel's actions. The FBI confirmed that it
was looking into the case sometime after a grand jury indicted Vensel on a
battery charge.
Vensel later pleaded guilty to the battery charge, and agreed to
surrender his law enforcement license and never seek employment as an officer
again, the lawsuit states.
Federal authorities also reportedly were examining another
drunk-and-disorderly case, involving a man named Terry Ratliff, who claimed
that Parkersburg Officer Nathan Deuley assaulted him at a holding center.
Ratliff later sued the department, and won a $77,000 settlement.
The department placed Deuley on disciplinary leave after a
string of beating allegations, including an incident in which Deuley and an
officer were accused of beating and arresting a gay man at his home. The city
settled that subsequent lawsuit for $100,000.
Deuley later filed a whistleblower lawsuit against Newell,
claiming that the city placed him on leave because he had leaked the
department's policy to beat belligerents.
Newell declined to comment on the new lawsuit Thursday, but
previously has denied allegations that he encouraged police brutality.
Bryan said Seabolt hopes to call the alleged policy to light.
"Rather than to attempt to settle his case quickly and
quietly as others have done, my client has courageously chosen to address the
issue from the top down," he said, "in order to ensure that the
people of Parkersburg never again have to fear for their physical safety at the
hands of those entrusted to protect them."