$30 Million Civil Trial Underway Against NYPD Cop who Shot Unarmed Black Man in the back after DUI Stop (no prior arrests)

From [HERE] A Metro-North conductor was lying face down on the ground when an off-duty rookie cop in the Bronx shot him in the back. Edward Mitchell, a Black man, 41, says in a $30 million lawsuit that the officer violated his civil rights in 2005 by using excessive force after the two men had a fender-bender on an exit ramp off the Bruckner Expressway.

Jury selection in the trial is set to begin Monday. Mitchell’s lawyer, James Lenihan, said he has forensic evidence and witnesses to prove his African-American client was on the ground when white officer Anthony Adorno fired two shots.

“I remember being shot in the back by a police officer,” Mitchell told the Daily News. “It hit my leg. I fell on the ground. I remember the officer telling me, ‘Don’t move. Don’t move.’ It was very painful.” Mitchell said his most painful memories from that night involve “the ordeal of my family seeing me in a hospital with handcuffs on my wrist and my leg.

City lawyers declined comment. An NYPD review found the shooting to be justified.

Papers filed in Adorno’s defense say Mitchell “fled the scene” of the initial accident and when Adorno pulled him over, Mitchell “attacked” the officer, fracturing the cop’s arm and “severing his finger.”

Mitchell, a Metro-North conductor for 17 years and a father of two who had never been arrested before this incident, was charged with reckless endangerment, driving while intoxicated and leaving the scene of an accident.

He pleaded guilty to a violation, driving while impaired.

“The fact that I was running away and he shot me in the back [of my leg] — that part gets me mad.”