Christopher Coen
Melissa Sogard
nancylee1
Phoenix settles men’s police-abuse claim
by Michael Ferraresi – Jul. 8, 2010 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
Two Sudanese men who claimed they were wrongfully arrested and abused by police officers outside a south Phoenix church received a $150,000 settlement to preclude their going to court.
The City Council approved the payment Wednesday, although an internal police investigation cleared Officers Jason Hammernick and Corey Shibata of any wrongdoing.
The notice of claim from the July 2009 incident outlined how the officers “conspired to falsify” details of the case to justify their probable cause for booking the men on suspicion of resisting arrest and to “avoid being held accountable for their wrongful conduct.” A notice of claim is the first step toward a lawsuit.
One the men, Aluk Bak Deng, is the president of the Arizona chapter of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, a democratic organization in the war-ravaged African nation.
Bak Deng, 38, had traveled to the church from his home in Tucson to speak at a prayer service at St. Peter and Paul Church near Seventh Avenue and Buckeye Road.
He was sitting in a rented Nissan X-Terra with the other claimant and a third man, waiting for the church to be opened, when the officers arrived.
The men say they were aggressively pushed and shoved outside the vehicle; the officers reported that Bak Deng and Angok Atem, 28, refused to comply with commands, which led to the physical escalation.
The Rev. Anderia Arok, pastor at St. Peter and Paul Church, said he and other congregants saw one of the officers “dragging” Atem and “hitting his face on the ground” in the scuffle.
“It looked like a humiliation,” Arok said. “(The police) did not give us an explanation when we asked what was the matter. . . . Their approach should be better.”
