Indian American grandfather Sureshbhai Patel, who was severely assaulted by Alabama police on Feb 6, 2015 received a $1.75 million settlement in his civil lawsuit against the city and the two police officers involved in the incident. The lawsuit does not name the officers involved in the incident: they are identified as John Doe and Jim Smith. But extensive coverage of the case revealed that the officer trainee, Eric Parker, performed a front leg sweep on Patel, knocking him to the ground before arresting him. The two officers arrived at the scene after a neighbor called police, saying “a skinny black man” was walking around the neighborhood peering into people’s garages.
According to earlier reports, Patel attempted to tell Parker that he spoke no English. During a trial, Parker said he felt threatened by Patel, who is small and weighs an estimated 130 lbs. Patel, 57 at that time, was paralyzed from being thrown to the ground, and spent several days in the hospital due to spinal injuries. His son Chirag Patel said that his father would likely never walk again without the use of a walker. Since he had just arrived in the US, the elderly man had not yet obtained health insurance and was stuck with thousands of dollars in medical bills.
According to court documents, Patel and the City of Madison appear to have settled the case out of court sometime in February. “Not holding Parker accountable for his excessive use of force and allowing him to continue as a police officer is a fundamental failure of accountability, by both the City of Madison and our criminal justice system,” said wrote Patel’s attorney Hank Sherrod in a statement announcing the settlement.
