Providence Police Sued for $7 Million in Flashlight 'Coma Beating' of Restrained, Unarmed Latino Man

From [HERE] and [complaint] A Latino man who was shown in surveillance video being beaten by a Providence policeman with a metal flashlight while he was handcuffed has sued the city, police department and several police officers. 

Luis Mendonca is seeking $7 million in a lawsuit filed Friday in Providence Superior Court. Mendonca was beaten unconscious in October 2009 after officers stopped him on suspicion of theft and trespassing. The lawsuit alleges that false statements and police reports were submitted to cover up the assault and that witness statements favorable to Mendonca were omitted. The lawsuit claims that Mendonca’s civil rights protected by the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments were violated when police used excessive force against him. The suit says as a result of the excessive force Mendonca suffered severe bodily injuries including contusions, dental reconstruction, coma and psychological damages. He was in a coma for two days following the incident and his head had to be stapled back together. [MORE]

The grainy, black-and-white video shows a group of Providence police and RISD campus officers struggling with Mendonca in a parking lot off Benefit Street on the city’s East Side while he is lying on the ground near a parked car. It shows the officers dragging Mendonca from under the car and into the center of the parking lot, after he has apparently been restrained. The video then shows another police officer entering the fray, kicking Mendonca and following up by striking him several times with a flashlight, then kicked him one last time before Mendonca was hauled away

The video, which has no sound, ends with a visibly limp Mendonca being dragged by police officers up a flight of stairs leading to Benefit Street. [MORE] 

Detective Robert DeCarlo was convicted of assault but the conviction was overturned because of prosecutorial misconduct. He is suspended without pay.

Mendonca also claims that he faced malicious prosecution in which the defendants did not have probable cause to initiate criminal proceedings and was wrongly imprisoned without process of law.

Criminally, Mendonca is being charged with two counts of assault and one count of resisting arrest as a result of the incident. The case is still pending.