August 15, 2008
A Federal jury award Ms. Raque $1 million dollars in punitive damages this week.
Raque testified that Officer Wilder pepper sprayed her, threw her to the ground, knocked her against his cruiser, then falsely charged her with resisting arrest. Officer Wilder claimed Raque hindered his investigation by telling the children to go inside before he was done talking to them.
The testimony alleged that the police were called out on a complaint that children were playing hide and seek in the neighborhood. Another officer who arrived on the scene did not support the arrest. The officer James Wilder had a long history of problems as a police officer, but his record was not checked by Strathmoor Village a sixth class city in Jefferson County.
U.S. District Judge Simpson, apparently citing CR 404B, did not allow introduction of the officers prior disciplinary record. LawReader has been informed that Officer Wilder had been fired from every police job he had held, and may have had as many as 50 complaints filed against him.
A civil claim against the city for negligent hiring, was bifurcated from the false arrest claim.
The City made an offer of settlement of $50,000 before the trial, and indicated they would go no higher. Romines rejected the low ball offer.
Romines, in a LawReader interview, said that one phone call by Strathmore Village officials would have revealed the troubled history of Officer Wilder.
Wilder was suspended after the incident and later fired. The city’s police chief said later that Wilder had used “very poor judgment” and could have avoided the altercation by having “simply withdrawn from the situation.”
Romines, a graduate of the Univ. of Louisville College of Law has been in practice in Louisville for fifteen years.