Baltimore Pays $500,000 to Elderly Black Man Falsely Arrested & Savagely Beaten in City Jail

From [HERE] and [MORE] and [MORE] An elderly Black man who was beaten in jail after being arrested on false charges by city police was awarded $500,000 to settle a pending lawsuit.  The plaintiff, Aubrey Knox lost a kidney after the brutal beating. Baltimore's spending panel agreed on Wednesday to pay $500,000 to Mr. Knox and his wife Lena Knox after police arrested them on dubious charges of kidnapping their own grandson — and the grandfather was severely beaten in the city's Central Booking and Intake Facility. The Knox's charged that they were not only subjected to a police search of their house, but intrusive interrogations, threats and false imprisonment.

Aubrey Knox, 60, and Lena Knox, 58, of Northwest Baltimore, sued four police officers over the 2007 arrests, claiming they were illegally arrested and that Aubrey Knox was not protected from other inmates while in custody of jail officials. In a memo to the Board of Estimates this week, Deputy City Solicitor David E. Ralph wrote that Aubrey Knox suffered "serious" injuries, and that the city's law department had concerns about "whether there were sufficient facts" for the arrest in the first place.

The allegations stem from Aug. 10, 2007, when police received a 911 call from a mother who claimed her child had been kidnapped by the Knoxes. The Knoxes permitted the officers to inspect their house and, “having concluded that the child was not present and there was no basis for the complaint, the officers left the Knox home.”

Returning later to the residence was Sgt. Eames, who interrogated the couple “for several hours.” The police investigation continued until the department “confirmed with Virginia police that the child was in Virginia, lawfully with the child’s father, and that the mother had relinquished physical custody of the child more than a year earlier,” the memo said.

Despite the report from Virginia police, the child’s mother insisted that the child was held by the Knoxes, and Detectives Epperson and Fullwood-Jackson opened a new investigation.

The detectives told the couple to return the grandchild to Maryland. “When the Knoxes did not produce the child, Det. Epperson filled out an arrest warrant for Mr. Knox and then arrested him at a store. Ms. Knox was subsequently arrested, and the couple were detained overnight at Central Booking.”

“During that night, Mr. Knox, who is in his 70s, was savagely beaten by other inmates while under the care and responsibility of the defendants," said the Knoxes' lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. According to the suit, Knox suffered "permanent injury to his head, face, arms, eyes and body, and in particular, his kidneys." He suffered kidney failure and must undergo dialysis regularly, the suit said. The city's payment settles the lawsuit.

When the grandparents were brought to trial, the Baltimore City State's Attorney's Office dropped all charges against the Knoxes, records show. The Knoxes' arrest came at a time when arrest rates were high in Baltimore, which resulted in crowded conditions at Central Booking.

The couple filed the lawsuit in May 2010 seeking $15 million in compensatory damages and $110 million in punitive damages. Today’s settlement was unanimously approved by the Board of Estimates without discussion. [MORE]