Nov 12, 2009 5:58 am US/Eastern
Woman Awarded $300,000 In Police Brutality Suit
By ROB MORRISON, CBS 2 HD News
EAST ORANGE, N.J. (CBS) ―
There was justice for a New Jersey woman who claims police brutalized her in her own home nearly a decade ago.
A jury has awarded her $300,000 in her civil case against two officers.
"This has been a very long ordeal, but it's just as if it happened this morning," Esmay Parchment said.
It happened eight years ago at Parchment's Williams Street home.
East Orange Police Officers William Flood and Kim Johnson got into a violent physical altercation with her when a routine call spiraled out of control.
Esmay said what happened next was the worst experience of her life. She said the two officers slapped and kicked her as she lay handcuffed on the floor.
"While she slapping me in my face and the other held my hair with the handcuffs behind, be stabilize me while the others look at me and laugh and scream and holler," Parchment said.
After nearly a decade of pressing her emotional case a jury has finally said the officers are liable for use of excessive force and false arrest. Esmay has been awarded $300,000.
Officer Johnson's attorney maintains an entirely different account of what happened that morning. He said Esmay was the aggressor and the officers were only following orders from a supervisor who was also on the scene.
James Horan said if the jury had known Esmay had two prior arrests in town, they would have decided differently.
"There's a history of some arrests. She always maintained to the jury a good relationship with police but that wasn't the case," Horan said.
Horan plans to file a motion for a brand new , while Esmay's attorney plans to hold the city liable for damages, which means, despite the verdict, this 8-year-old dispute is still a long way from being resolved for good.
The officers were cleared of any criminal wrongdoing back in 2002.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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