CLEVELAND (AP) — The city of Cleveland says it isn’t to blame for the death of a 12-year-old boy who had a pellet gun when he was shot by police near a recreation center.
In court documents, the city says Tamir Rice’s injuries and the subsequent complaints for damages were the result of his own actions and a failure “to exercise due care to avoid injury.” That’s among 20 defenses in Cleveland’s response to a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of Tamir’s family. The city also says it didn’t violate Tamir’s federal rights and is entitled to certain legal immunities.
An officer responding to a call about someone with a firearm shot the boy on Nov. 22. The family’s complaint alleges excessive force, negligence and failure by police to immediately provide first aid.
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ALL i can say is BULL F’N SHIT…
Wasn’t there someone in charge who could just order their attorneys to do the obvious and settle? I can’t even guess at what they’re thinking about.
Don’t read too much into the affirmative defenses. That’s typically a section of the answer to a complaint that contains everything you can think of, including the kitchen sink, because if you don’t assert them, you waive them.
Granted, it’s a distasteful (at best) defense in this situation, but the attorney would be committing all kinds of malpractice by not asserting it and preserving it.
And not just the attorneys for the City, but the attorneys for any private insurer or underwriter. The last two have standards, written into their policies, requiring the party insured, such as here the City, to follow a comprehensive form of pleadings that derives from decades of cases not just those insurers but all others that share information - and they share like crazy on defenses, because it’s in all their interests to, even to the point of entering into large overriding agreements that require any insurer that’s a party to the agreement to follow the standard. And,like with how bureaucracy protects individual government employees from responsibility for particular decisions when the form or template had been followed, the City and even its direct insurers and underwriters that sign into such override agreement are protected from individual responsibility for adhering to the terms of the override.
Well…let’s go to the tape…