ASHTABULA — The attorney for a 36-year-old city man, who claims police officers brutally assaulted his client Jan. 28, is filing a civil rights lawsuit against the Ashtabula Police Department.
According to Stephen Boles’ attorney Mark Hanni of Youngstown, his client was beaten, choked and stun-gunned outside his Jefferson Avenue home and then handcuffed to a gurney until a Cleveland hospital official insisted police uncuff Boles, all this long before any charges were filed against him.
It was not until Thursday that Ashtabula City Solicitor Michael Franklin filed eight charges against Boles.
Ashtabula Police Chief Robert Stell said no excessive use of force was used in the case. Stell added that an assault rifle and two loaded magazines were discovered at the scene.
“It’s our contention that Mr. Boles was quite combative,” Stell said. “Use of force was necessary.”
According Hanni, two white police officers beat and used a stun gun on Boles, an African American. The incident occurred after police were called to his house on Jefferson Avenue for a domestic dispute.
“A girl’s mother said they were arguing,” Hanni said. “When the police arrived, she wasn’t there. He came out of the house, and (one officer) put a choke hold on him. Another officer pulled up. … The officer said: ‘Shoot him; shoot him (with the TASER device).’”
Hanni said Boles was repeatedly choked, beaten with a baton and stunned with a TASER.
“His constitutional rights were definitely violated,” he said. “(Boles) kept asking, ‘Why are you doing this to me?’”
Hanni is filing a civil rights case in federal court and asking the U.S. Justice Department to initiate an investigation.
Boles’ family said the case should be a call to action for victims of police brutality and racial profiling.
“Police beat up on him and TASER’ed him,” said Jill Church, his godmother, who makes her home in Ashtabula. “There’s blood all over the driveway and back door.”
She also charges the police officers didn’t stop hitting and choking her godson until he was unconscious with severe head injuries. He was then flown by medical helicopter to Huron Road Hospital.
Neighbors, who didn’t want to be identified, allege the two police officers beat Boles until he was unconscious.
Boles, a former professional boxer, has been convicted of disorderly conduct in the past, according to court records.
Police spokesman, detective Sgt. Joseph Cellitti, refused to comment on the incident last week, other than to say “it’s under investigation.” No charges were immediately filed against Boles.
Boles stayed in the intensive care unit in Huron Road Hospital until late Saturday, when he was moved to a regular hospital room, according to Huron Road hospital officials. Sunday night, he was released, hospital officials said.
According to his godmother, Boles is staying with a friend in Ashtabula because “he can’t care for himself,” she said. “He’s pretty messed up.”
On Tuesday, police executed a warrant for Boles’ arrest, based on the Jan. 28 incident, and Wednesday they went to pick him up.
Boles was charged Thursday morning with possession of crack cocaine, a second-degree felony; possession of drugs, a third-degree felony; two counts of criminal tools, fifth-degree felonies; and trafficking drugs, a fifth-degree felony, according to Municipal Court records. Boles also was charged Thursday with three misdemeanors: obstruction of official business and resisting arrest and one other charge, according to court records.
“I want to know what took so long,” Hanni said. “Four or five days?”
When police arrested Boles Wednesday, they found a bag of marijuana on him, so they added the misdemeanor charge of possession of marijuana to his list of charges, according to court records and city police reports.
Boles didn’t make an initial court appearance because he had to be taken to the hospital, officials said.
George Wilson, president of the Ashtabula County chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said, “everyone on the street” is talking about the altercation.
“All I’ve heard is rumors,” Wilson said. “I’m waiting on a call from the family or his girlfriend, or somebody. I want facts.”
Special agent Scott Wilson at the FBI in Painesville said Thursday he had not yet heard about the arrest. The FBI is the lead agency for investigating possible federal civil rights violations, according to its Web site.
This isn’t the first time an African American male has accused the city of police brutality. In March 2008, a jury found Matthew Davis of Ashtabula not guilty of resisting arrest and domestic violence, according to Municipal Court records. The one-day trial took place in Ashtabula Municipal Court, with Judge Albert Camplese presiding. Davis tangled with police in August 2006, while riding a bicycle on West 50th Street. He said a city police officer knocked him down, stunned him with a TASER device and let his canine partner bite him because he didn’t have proper identification on him.
After the jury found Davis not guilty, he retained Geauga County attorney David Malik and filed a civil rights lawsuit against the police department. The case is pending.
In September 2007, NAACP held a community meeting after people in the city’s black neighborhoods charged the police were engaging in racial profiling.
