Police Officer's lawyers seek gag order in shooting suit
Friday, August 20, 2004 at 10:02PM
TheSpook
Cops Shoot Unarmed, Nude Man. Police "thought he had a gun. "
The attorney for an unarmed man shot in a drug raid is
trying to force a settlement by hyping the case, they said in a motion.
Lawyers for a police officer who shot a naked, unarmed Bucks County man
during a drug raid want a judge to impose a gag order in a federal
lawsuit over the shooting. The lawyers say the injured man's attorney,
Thomas Mellon Jr., has tried to force a settlement by hyping the case
in the news media and by threatening to release a doctored videotape of
two police officers testifying about the shooting. Mellon's client,
22-year-old James Hoskins, was shot by Middletown Township Police
Detective Dale Keddie Jr. during a Feb. 6 drug raid at Hoskins'
apartment in Bristol Township. Hoskins was naked, holding a wadded
T-shirt to cover his genitals, when Keddie entered the bedroom. Keddie,
who later said he thought Hoskins had a gun, fired once, wounding him.
Hoskins, who was not a target of the drug investigation, was critically
wounded in the abdomen and leg. The shooting was justified, she said,
because Keddie reasonably
believed his life was in danger. [more ]
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