A U.S. Army soldier who claims he was beaten by Milwaukee police while on leave from assignment in Iraq is suing the city and four detectives. Charles Michael Griffin planned to file suit today in federal court in Milwaukee, according to his attorney.Griffin was home to visit and care for his father, who had suffered a stroke, when the altercation occurred in July 2004, the two men told Journal Sentinel columnist Eugene Kane last year. The younger Griffin said the detectives named in a copy of the suit, Mark Harris, Paul Lough, Joseph Warren and Dennis Devalkenaere, arrested him and used excessive force for no reason. His injuries included multiple bruises and a cracked shoulder bone, Griffin said. Detectives from the anti-gang unit had been called to a north side neighborhood to investigate a report of shots fired, a police spokesman said at the time. Griffin said he had been drinking with friends as a sendoff, because he was scheduled to return to Iraq the following day. He said he did nothing to provoke the detectives and tried to leave. At the time of the encounter, the police spokesman said a heavily intoxicated Griffin attacked an officer. Griffin was neither ticketed nor charged, his father told Kane. On Wednesday, police spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz declined to discuss the situation or the pending suit. Neither City Attorney Grant Langley nor District Attorney E. Michael McCann could be reached. After his arrest, Griffin spent the night in jail and missed his return flight to Iraq as a result. Griffin, now 22, remains in the Army and is stationed in Seattle, according to a legal assistant for his attorney, Blake Horwitz of Chicago. The federal civil rights suit accuses the detectives of violating Griffin's Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizure. It also alleges a conspiracy that violates the 14th Amendment. The officers "conspired to injure the Plaintiff by: agreeing not to report each other after witnessing him being beaten; collectively beating and/or failing to intervene in the beating; generating false documentation to cover-up for their own misconduct," according to a draft of the suit provided Wednesday to the Journal Sentinel. The city failed to properly investigate the excessive force complaint and failed to properly discipline the officers, according to the suit. [more]
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