in federal court in atlanta a jury has just awarded 100 million dollars against a police officer and his employer the city of atlanta this was a section 1983 civil lawsuit with allegations of excessive force by a police officer it was a taser case the jurors during the trial were shown body cam footage of what happened they specifically awarded 40 million dollars against the defendant police officer officer grubbs and 60 million dollars against his employer the city of atlanta i looked up all the court paperwork on pacer for anything that i could find that was interesting here's what happened as best as i can tell did not pull this off of the media reports i got this straight out of the court paperwork so a lot of this comes from the depositions i haven't seen a trial transcript yet and as you know in federal court it's we we have no video cameras videoing what what what happened so you can't follow it on youtube so this is when it happened july 10 2018 officer grubbs says that he observed jerry blessing blasting game near a roadway in atlanta and believed that he was panhandling panhandling or soliciting for monetary contributions is a misdemeanor in georgia so officer grubb exits his vehicle he approaches jerry and he observes jerry standing near traffic but he testified in his deposition that jerry appeared to be asking for money though he never saw him receive money so as officer grubbs walks towards jerry jerry notices him walking towards him and then he attempts to flee on foot grubbs orders jerry to stop jerry does not verbally respond instead he just continues to run away from officer grubbs jerry then steps or hurtles over a guardrail and officer grubbs pursues as jerry navigated the guardrail and officer grubbs states in his deposition that jerry swung an arm at him but missed and that's when he tased him now jerry has no recollection unfortunately of the event so he was unable to give his side of the story so allegedly a swing and a miss undisputed no contact after traversing the guard rail so now he's at the top of a steep slope and that's how this injury happened jerry continues to flee so officer grubbs draws his taser and he tases jerry in the back when jerry was tased at the time he was descending this steep hill the tasing caused jerry to lose his footing and he tumbled down the hill and he hit his head at the bottom after officer grubbs tased jerry jerry fell he struck his head on a concrete pad of a traffic control or utility box now the city of atlanta concedes that once officer grubbs made contact with jerry at the utility box jerry was in custody actually i would argue that as soon as the taser barbs hit jerry he was in custody officer grubbs then called dispatch for medical assistance jerry was hospitalized and he received medical treatment on the scene but he was later charged with misdemeanors for violating the state law pedestrians soliciting on roadway he was also charged with the state law of obstructing law enforcement officer of course and callously officer grubbs and his supervisor personally traveled to the hospital to deliver these criminal charges to jerry wasn't that nice of them unfortunately as a result of this incident jerry was left a quadriplegic and jerry had again no recollection of the day of this incident and he now requires around-the-clock specialized medical care where he resides at a long-term facility specializing in traumatic brain injury patients so being a an arrest on the street not a pretrial detainee or prisoner the on the issue of whether this was excessive force we look at the grain factors number one the severity of the crime he was alleged to have committed was very very minor it looked like to the officer that he was asking people for money and he didn't even see people receive money number two jerry was fleeing the officer but they didn't know why there was no verbal response they didn't say that they saw any weapons on him or him threatening anybody so again it goes in favor of an absolutely excessive use of force that's all they had the only gram factor that is really in dispute here in my opinion is the last one whether there was any immediate threat to anyone's safety now all the officer alleged is that there was basically a swing and a miss apparently the evidence was is that jerry was tased in the back so we know that he wasn't hit the officer wasn't hit and we know that jerry was tased in the back so that doesn't look good when you know for the jury and the jury ultimately decides whether or not there is any sufficient safety threat to justify a tasering there also was a monel claim here and what that is is a pattern of practice claim and there wasn't a whole lot of meat on those bones that i could see in the court paperwork basically they alleged there was a custom and practice of allowing officers to get away with the use of excessive force without a whole lot of accountability and that's sort of the the the process everywhere but hey in that in this case that was worth 60 million dollars damages in this case i took a look at the numbers listen to this a future medical expense plan was submitted to the jury establishing 16 over 16 million dollars in future medical expenses which is just sad here past medical expenses as of the date of the trial were already up to over three and a half million dollars so this is a massive verdict that will no doubt send appropriate shock waves through the offices of law enforcement risk managers across the country but it does come at a large price to jerry i don't know of anyone who would trade their life trade a life for as a quadriplegic in a long-term care facility for 100 million dollars fact is it never should have happened maybe it should have been 200 million dollars as always thanks for watching you'll find more information at the link below to the blog at thecivilrightslawyer.com if you have a video you want me to see please use the submission link in the 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