A federal complaint has been filed against a number of area law enforcement officers and government agencies after a March 2017 vehicle pursuit took a violent turn, leading to a beating so severe one of the suspect’s testicles was ruptured.
The complaint, filed in March, alleges the Hamilton County, Fort Oglethorpe and Catoosa County, Georgia, officers’ conduct deprived the man of his right to not be subjected to unreasonable seizure by the use of excessive and potentially deadly force under the Fourth Amendment. The Times Free Press is not identifying the man because of the nature of his injury.
The complaint further alleges that Hamilton and Catoosa counties and the city of Fort Oglethorpe failed to protect the man from the unreasonable and excessive use of potentially deadly force by the officers, who are employed by those governments.
Since the complaint’s filing, all defendants have been dismissed by the court, but the plaintiff and his attorneys have until Monday to file an amended complaint.
If an amended complaint is not filed, the case faces complete dismissal because it fails to specifically name which officers are responsible for the beating and which officers failed to stop it. That information is something the plaintiff and his attorneys have not been able to determine because they’ve not been allowed to reach the point at which they would have access to review the evidence in the case.