Family of man critically injured by deputy’s tackle goes to trial

Tweet   Jan 17, 2011 at 10:05 PM PST SEATTLE — Twenty months after he suffered catastrophic brain damage, the wife and family of a 31-year-old man severely injured during a run-in with police in downtown Seattle will have their day in court. Christopher Harris was walking in Belltown on May 10, 2009, when he found himself caught in the middle of a foot pursuit. Two King County deputy sheriffs to More..ld him to stop and he ran. When he slowed outside the Cinerama cinema, a deputy knocked him into a wall. He hasn’t been the same since. Unable to walk, talk or care for himself, his wife and family claim Harris was the victim of excessive force in the early morning incident, which was captured on a theater surveillance camera. Months after the incident, they filed a lawsuit on Harris' behalf against; a jury trial in the matter is expected to begin Tuesday. According to the civil filing, King County Deputies Matthew Paul and Joseph Eshom were patrolling on foot as transit police for Metro Transit in the Belltown neighborhood the morning of the incident. The deputies heard a Seattle police report of a disturbance at a nearby convenience store and headed towards it. They then continued down an alley, believing those involved in the convenience store incident had gone that way. Reaching the end of the alley, the deputies confronted Harris, a passerby who had nothing to do with the events that had brought them to the area. Harris ran and the deputies, clad in black fatigues, gave chase. He stopped in front of the Cinerama movie theater and, according to his attorneys, was ready to surrender. "Mr. Harris stopped running, put his hands out in front of him and said, 'I don't have anything, I didn't steal anything,'" attorney Simeon Osborn told the court. In surveillance video taken at the scene, Paul is shown lowering his shoulder and slamming into Harris. The force of the impact sent Harris head first into a wall, which left him unconsc...

Channel: LiveLeak Video Length: 0s Date Found: Tue, Jan 18 2011 9:01 PM Category: News Date Produced: Tue, Jan 18 2011 12:00 AM View Count: 0