A former Denver jail inmate will receive $50,000 after a federal jury determined a sheriff’s deputy violated the inmate’s constitutional rights by using excessive force against him.
However, the jury hearing the case against former deputy Brady Lovingier and Denver did not find the city or sheriff’s department responsible for Lovingier’s actions, according to the verdict form filed May 12 in U.S. District Court in Colorado. The jury also declined to assess punitive damages against Lovingier.
The jury’s verdict pushes the amount the city has paid to settle lawsuits against law enforcement close to $15 million in three years.
Anthony Waller sued Lovingier and the city after Lovingier grabbed the inmate by his shackles and slammed him into a metal window frame inside a city courtroom. Waller claimed Lovingier had caused serious injuries and violated his civil rights by using excessive force, and that the city was responsible because it did not take steps to prevent deputies from using excessive force.
The incident happened in 2012 as Waller was appearing before Judge Doris Burd.
Waller had asked a question of Burd, and she was beginning to answer when Lovingier grabbed Waller’s waist chain and slung him to one side. Waller hit a metal window frame in the courtroom, fell and then was dragged from the room personnel.
As Lovingier, a white deputy, was pulling Waller, who is a black man, out of the courtroom, he called him “boy,” a racially offensive term, the lawsuit said.
Burd wrote a letter to Denver’s chief judge expressing concern about what had happened, and an internal investigation was launched.
Lovingier, the son of a former sheriff, was suspended 30 days without pay. He no longer works for the sheriff’s department.
Former Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey declined to prosecute Lovingier. In a special hearing in 2015, a county judge later determined that enough evidence existed to charge Lovingier with misdemeanor assault but the statute of limitations had passed.
