Seattle settles police-brutality case for $1.75 million

The city of Seattle will pay $1.75 million to settle a federal civil-rights lawsuit in the case of a mentally ill man who suffered a heart attack and severe brain damage during an arrest more than three years ago, city officials said Friday. The settlement follows a 2011 report by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in which the Seattle Police Department was found to have "engaged in a pattern or practice of excessive force."

The lawsuit, filed by the father of Brian Torgerson, alleged that Torgerson was beaten by officers in May 2010, restrained and had his head wrapped in a mesh "spit hood" even though he was bleeding heavily and vomiting.

"There were so many officers, and it seemed totally unnecessary for them to force this man's body and head into the ground so forcefully and for so long," Cole Harrington, a resident at the apartment complex where Torgenson lived, said in a sworn declaration, the Seattle Times reported. "I was concerned for the man's ability to breathe,"

Court documents said police went to Torgerson's apartment at the request of his parents, who wanted him to receive help after he had assaulted his father the night before.

The settlement is possibly the largest ever in an excessive-force case involving the Seattle Police Department, the paper reported.

Torgerson spent nearly three months at Harborview Medical Center after the incident, and then was transferred to Western State Hospital. Lawyer Edwin Budge said he now lives in a group home.

Assistant City Attorney Brian Maxey called what happened to Torgerson a "horrible outcome" to the officers' legal attempt to take him into custody.

The DOJ opened an investigation into misconduct -- that included the use of flashlights, batons and other weapons -- at the Seattle Police Department in 2011.

That investigation found that Seattle police had "engaged in a pattern or practice of excessive force that violates the Constitution and federal law." The DOJ also said that its investigation "raised serious concerns" that some policies of the police department "could result in discriminatory policing."

"When Seattle police officers used force, they did so in an unconstitutional manner nearly 20 percent of the time," the DOJ said.

The DOJ investigation also found that Seattle police officers escalated situations and used unecessary force when arresting people for minor crimes, making it "problematic," given that 70 percent of use-of-force encounters involved people with mental illness or those under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

The federal probe was opened after the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington and other community groups called for a federal investigation, the Seattle Times reported.

A settlement between the DOJ and the Seattle Police required the police department to revise its policy on using force, increase officer training, report investigations and more carefully supervise its use of force.

Al Jazeera and wire services