A former repossession agent has expanded his $30 million police brutality lawsuit against the city of Greenwood and one of its lawmen to include a police shift captain and suspended Leflore County Judge Solomon C. Osborne.
A court date has been set for June 21 in U.S. District Court in Greenville.
Chris Reed is suing the city, Osborne, Officer Curtis Lee and Capt. Henry Harris for deprivation of property and injuries he received after trying to repossess a silver Mercedes Benz parked at the end of the driveway to Osborne's office Nov. 7.
The federal lawsuit also claims that incompetency in the Greenwood Police Department and a conspiracy between police and Osborne led to Reed's false arrest.
The original complaint filed on Nov. 25 did not list Osborne and Harris as defendants. But Reed's attorney, Lee Abraham, says witness statements and results from an internal police investigation led to the decision to include them.
"We postured the case as a result of our thorough investigation," Abraham said.
In the lawsuit, Osborne is accused of battery and named a "state actor," meaning he was helped by a police officer to deprive Reed of his rights. Osborne was not available for comment.
The incident described in the lawsuit began at Osborne's office, where Reed was trying to pick up the Mercedes. The amended complaint follows basically the same scenario in the original lawsuit, with Osborne in another vehicle chasing down Reed and grabbing him around the neck to stop the repossession and Lee cuffing Reed, dropping his head against a curb twice and issuing him a citation for blocking traffic.
The vehicles were eventually towed to Cannon Chevrolet, and the Mercedes was returned to Osborne.
The lawsuit accuses Lee of false arrest, excessive use of force and reckless disregard for Reed's well-being.
Police Chief Ronnie White declined comment about the pending lawsuit.
Following the incident, Reed was hospitalized and underwent brain surgery to remove a potentially deadly aneurysm behind his eye. The lawsuit claims he "continues to suffer constant headaches, blurred vision, no sense of smell and fatigues easily."
Reed says he signed, under Lee's direction, an affidavit charging Osborne with assault and trespassing and malicious mischief, only to learn later that police had no record of the document. Reed also tried to press charges against Lee, but Harris told him he couldn't do so against a police officer, according to the lawsuit. State law allows complaints against officers pending circuit court review.
Harris is accused of denying Reed his constitutional right to access to the courts.
The lawsuit blames all of the defendants for depriving Reed of his property, citing a state law authorizing "self-help" repossession, which doesn't require a court order "so long as the repossession may be effected without a breach of the peace." Under this law, the property legally belonged to Reed and his employer, American Lender Service Co., the suit contends.
"No breach of peace occurs merely because the repossessor enters upon a person's driveway, carport or into an open garage to retrieve the vehicle," it says.
The suit also claims the officers at the scene, including Lee, approved the repossession at first.
"After being on scene for approximately 10 to 15 minutes, and after verifying the information on the repossession paperwork, the officers informed Osborne that Plaintiff had a right to the vehicle and ordered the individual with Osborne to move his vehicle from blocking the roadway," the suit says.
Reed says Harris later claimed that Reed needed a court-issued Writ of Replevin to take the car. The complaint denies the need for such an order.
The lawsuit ties its deprivation of property claim to ignorance within the Police Department. According to the suit, Lee and Harris were not adequately trained on the laws pertaining to repossessions or on handling stressful situations. The deficiency is evident in the department's own internal investigation into the matter, the complaint says.
This misconduct "is clearly proven even in the City's own internal investigation which was provided as part of the Defendant's core disclosure," it says.
