Surprising the judge and infuriating the public, a federal jury has found five Bethlehem, Pa., police officers liable for using excessive force to arrest a crack-crazed man who had just stabbed a drug dealer to death with a samurai sword.

Five other officers were cleared and the jury awarded only $1 in damages to Sonny Thomas, 50, for the injuries he allegedly suffered during the Jan. 21, 2005 arrest. Thomas, who is serving life in prison without parole for the murder of Carlos Garcia, was seeking $35 million.

But Senior U.S. District Judge John P. Fullam called the finding of excessive force “a remarkable verdict that will be addressed again in time” and readers of The Morning Call newspaper of Allentown reacted vitriolically.

“Was the jury ... smoking crack as well?” asked one reader in an e-mail, while another commented, “I would love to know what any of the people in that jury would have done if they were in your position faced with a maniac who had no regard for human life.”

Thomas admitted smoking 12 rocks of crack cocaine during the four hours before he stabbed Garcia more than 80 times. He resisted arrest so fiercely, one officer recalled, that “It was like he had superhuman strength.”

Defense lawyers have filed papers asking Pullam to enter judgment for the defense notwithstanding the verdict or order a new trial. “[The] verdict has forever damaged the careers and reputations of the five of us,” Lieutenant David Strawn, one of those found liable, said in an e-mail.

A total of a dozen officers responded to a call that a man had been stabbed at Thomas' apartment. Police found Garcia's body face down on the floor, the four-foot-long sword sticking out of his back and his clothes on fire; Thomas, one officer testified, was “standing in the back, covered in blood, and was delusional.”

After a five-minute struggle, officers subdued Thomas and removed him from the apartment in handcuffs. The plaintiff also alleged that five officers then proceeded to beat him outside the apartment building, bouncing his head off the concrete sidewalk.

Pullam instructed the jury that if the police reports were true and officers only used force inside the apartment, the defense was entitled to a judgment in its favor.

What's puzzling is that of the five officers found liable, three were present outside Thomas' building while the evidence indicated that the other two -– Strawn and Matt Crenko -- were only involved in the struggle inside the apartment.

“As there was absolutely no testimony that Lieutenant Strawn ever laid a hand on the Plaintiff outside of the residence, it is apparent that the jury chose to disregard the Court's instruction,” the defense argues in its post-verdict motions.

According to one of the defendants, two jurors said after the trial that “they had a hard time believing it took ten officers to subdue one man. So, in their opinion, I along with my fellow officers must have been lying. That is the hardest thing for me to take.”

When Fullam does address the “remarkable verdict,” it would not be surprising if he finds it too much to take.

By Matthew Heller
12/11/06