A federal jury was unable to reach a verdict on Monday in the wrongful death lawsuit against two state police troopers linked to the fatal shooting of 12-year-old Michael Ellerbe. Deliberations will pick up again on Tuesday.
Ellerbe's father, Michael Hickenbottom, filed the suit accusing troopers Samuel Nassan and Juan Curry of excessive force and other offenses, after a coroner's inquest cleared the two men of criminal wrongdoing.

Attorney Geoffrey Fieger is asking the jury for more than $50 million in damages to punish troopers for allegedly covering up how the shooting occurred.

Ellerbe was shot in the back while running from the police, who had stopped him in a stolen SUV in Uniontown on Dec. 24, 2002.

In his closing argument on Thursday morning, Fieger described the boy as "target acquisition" and said he was "dehumanized" by the troopers.

"We give power to police, and in this case they abused it," Fieger said. "We will never tolerate this behavior. It's unacceptable in a civilized society. You can never shoot a child. He was no danger to them. You chased a little boy into a back yard and you shot him."

Though Ellerbe was unarmed, Nassan said he thought the boy had a weapon, because he was running with one hand in his pocket.

Fieger told jurors, "All of his life ultimately came down to a minute to two minutes of agony of being drowned in his own blood, paralyzed from the waist down."

Nassan testified that he fired his gun after hearing a shot and seeing Curry fall while climbing a fence, thinking that Curry had been fired on. But Curry was not shot, and said his gun had gone off accidentally while going over the fence.

Nassan and Curry acted appropriately under the circumstances of the chase, which was a "rapid, tense and unpredictable" situation, according to the closing argument by the defense.

There was an immediate response by 22 police officers, EMTs and firefighters who worked on Ellerbe and secured the scene, defense attorney Andrew Fletcher said.

Also, the shell casings matched the weapons and the troopers' accounts of the incident, the defense said.
Curry's pants were ripped, his knees were bloody and his hand was injured, proving that he got hung up on the fence, Fletcher said. [MORE]