Jury clears Metro, officers in lawsuit

Greg Tuttle

Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2000 | 10:09 a.m.

Two Metro Police officers did not use excessive force when they subdued a man five years ago while searching for a suspected drug dealer, a jury has determined.

Two other claims brought against the officers and the police department were also dismissed by a jury in U.S. District Court following a five-day trial.

"It was a just verdict," said Thomas Dillard, an attorney who represented the department and Metro officers Brian Greenway and Steve Leyba in the complaint filed by Esael Lopez.

In his suit, Lopez, 44, claimed his civil rights were violated on June 6, 1995, when Greenway and Leyba hit him on the balcony of a downtown apartment. The lawsuit sought unspecified damages for excessive force, malicious prosecution and battery.

The trial before U.S. District Judge Kent Dawson ended late Friday when jurors returned a verdict in favor of the officers.

Lopez said he was attacked by the officers while they were looking for a suspected drug dealer they had chased into the courtyard of an apartment complex on West Cincinnati Avenue. Lopez said he was born in Cuba and fled to the United States in 1994 after serving eight months in a communist prison for being a political dissident.

At the trial, Lopez said Greenway initiated the attack when he could not immediately respond in English to questioning about the fleeing drug dealer. Lopez said Greenway pushed him up against a wall and beat him with his fists. Leyba also beat him with a police baton, Lopez said.

Lopez suffered a black eye and abrasions to his face, neck and shoulders. He was charged with battery of a police officer, resisting arrest and trespassing, but the charges were eventually dropped.

At trial, the officers testified Lopez started the altercation by pushing Greenway and hitting him in the face. Greenway and Leyba said they used necessary force to subdue and arrest the man they said started the fight.

Dillard said after the verdict Lopez's account of the confrontation "made no sense at all."

Lopez's attorney, James Boles, said he will appeal the verdict. Lopez rejected a $40,000 offer by Metro to settle the case before it went to trial, he said.