A Colorado woman who was arrested while she was naked inside her room at a care facility for the homeless, bound by police to a chair at a jail for several hours and shocked twice with a Taser received a $2.4 million settlement Sunday.
Court records indicate there was no reason for officers doing a welfare check to enter Carolyn O’Neal’s room, because they were “communicating with her through her locked door and would have been able to form impressions from those communications.”
KDVR-TV in Denver reported the payment settles a case that began in May 2016.
In 2014, Fremont County deputies allegedly dragged O’Neal from a homeless transitional housing program facility in Cañon City.
Her lawyer, David Lane, said police “were called by management, her mother was dying, she was depressed, and she made some offhand statement about ‘Things are going so great, I feel like I should drive my car off a cliff.'”
She suffers from PTSD, he said.
Deputies charged her with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct, but the counts were dismissed by a judge who ruled there was no probable cause for officers to arrest her.
A jury decided her right to privacy was violated and that deputies used excessive force. The jury awarded her $3.6 million in April 2019, but the amount was reduced by a court to $1.7 million plus $400,000 in fees and costs. Both sides appealed.
Negotiations resulted in the dismissal of the case and the payment by Fremont County.
The Canon City Daily Record reported the lawsuit initially included Sheriff Allen Cooper and other sheriff’s officials, but they were dismissed.
The payment resolves the last remaining count, which is against the county.
Staff members at New Creations Inn, where O’Neal, 49 at the time, was staying, had called police.
At the jail, officers said they tried to keep O’Neal covered with a blanket, “but she was uncooperative,” according to the report. She was shocked twice with a Taser and wasn’t given clothing until 12 hours after she was taken into custody. She was bound to a chair for the first four hours.
Commissioner Debbie Bell said in a statement: “The Board of County Commissioners believes it is in the best interests of the county to fully resolve this case and move forward. This action will remove any financial impediments from our sheriff’s deputies’ lives.”
Lane, Fox News reported, called it an “outrageous case.”
“Law-enforcement officers who believed they were above the law got smacked down hard by a jury,” he said. “And unfortunately, this costs the taxpayers of Fremont County a lot of money. But I hope it inspires the citizenry to demand accountability from law enforcement – otherwise, it’s coming out of their pockets.”
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