YOUNGSTOWN
A
tentative settlement has been reached in a federal civil-rights lawsuit that
alleged misconduct by city police.
In
her Wednesday order dismissing the suit, U.S. District Judge Benita Y. Pearson
said the plaintiff, Desiree Johnson, and the city reached a tentative
settlement, subject to approval by Youngstown City Council and Mahoning County
Probate Court.
Judge
Pearson ordered the parties to immediately notify her if either council or the
probate court does not approve the settlement.
The
settlement, whose terms are not revealed in federal court documents, was
reached in a four-hour mediation conference facilitated by U.S. District Judge
Dan Aaron Polster in Cleveland.
In
her lawsuit, Johnson, 47, of Youngstown, alleged police used “excessive and
unreasonable force and searched and seized” her 12-year-old son at gunpoint
“without probable cause or justification” in 2009. The boy was not charged with
any crime.
In
March, Judge Pearson sharply criticized the city for “a pattern of federal
rights violations” by police Lt. Kevin Mercer, “which appears to have been
acquiesced to, or tolerated by,” the city.