An Alabama police officer did minimal harm to a nine-year-old girl by handcuffing her after she threatened a teacher, a jury has ruled, awarding the student only $1 in damages.

Laquarius Gray prevailed in the liability portion of a one-day trial on her civil rights claim as U.S. District Judge U.W. Clemon found that, as a matter of law, the officer illegally detained her during a physical education class at a Tuscaloosa elementary school.

Sheriff's Deputy Antonio Bostic, who worked as a resource officer at several schools, claimed he heard Gray threaten to punch a coach who was trying to get her to do jumping jacks exercises. “[T]his is how it feels to be in jail,” he told her while she was in handcuffs for at least five minutes.

But on the issue of damages, the jury apparently agreed with the defense, which argued in a brief that “the Defendant did not cause anything more than de minimis physical injury to the Plaintiff.” Gray's lawyers presented no expert testimony on damages.

The nominal compensatory award amounts to less than a slap on the wrist for Bostic. Last year, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Gray had suffered “an obvious violation" of her Fourth Amendment rights in denying summary dismissal of the case.

“[T]he handcuffing was excessively intrusive given Gray’s young age and the fact that it was not done to protect anyone’s safety,” the opinion said, concluding that, “Every reasonable officer would have known that handcuffing a compliant nine-year-old child for purely punitive purposes is unreasonable.”

Coach Lattuce Greer Williams testified that Gray “told me that she would punch me or hit me, hit me in the face,” but she didn't believe the girl would actually carry out the threat. Gray admitted saying something “disrespectful” to the coach.

By Matthew Heller
1/20/07