Police misconduct suit may be settled




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.