A jury will decide whether two Newburgh Heights police officers were following department protocol or abusing their power when they shocked a Cleveland woman repeatedly with a Taser while she was handcuffed.
Officers Joseph Szelenyi, 32, and Bobby Hoover, 33, stand trial this week in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, accused of holding Kim Bankhead captive for hours at their police station and torturing her with a Taser, an electroshock weapon that temporarily incapacitates its target.
Prosecutors say the officers shocked the woman at least a half-dozen times until she complained of chest pain and was taken to a hospital.
Szelenyi and Hoover are charged with felonious assault. Judge Brendan Sheehan threw out charges against a third officer, Christopher Minek, 26, because prosecutors could not produce enough evidence to suggest he participated in shocking the woman.
In opening statements Monday, defense lawyers argued that police used the Taser to control Bankhead, who was so intoxicated she could not perform the basic field sobriety test.
At her Municipal Court hearing in February 2008, Bankhead pleaded no contest to operating a vehicle while intoxicated. Charges of disorderly conduct, driving in a prohibited area, failure to yield and resisting arrest were dismissed.
But she has since filed a civil lawsuit in federal court, in which she is asking for $1.5 million in damages from each of the officers who used the Taser, saying the experience left her traumatized, anxious and chronically depressed.
Bankhead and her husband, Michael, had been drinking at the Crankshaft bar in Newburgh Heights on Nov. 25, 2007, and were on their way home around 9 p.m., when Bankhead said police lights surrounded her car.
Police ordered her out of the driver's seat, she said. And when she demanded to know why she had been pulled over, Bankhead said, Szelenyi slammed her head against the hood of his police cruiser, busting her lip and knocking her out cold. When she regained consciousness, Bankhead struggled against the officer, who had handcuffed her and was loading her into the backseat of his car. Without warning, Szelenyi shocked her in the leg, she said.
At the police station, the officers handcuffed Bankhead to a bench while they prepared to book her on charges of driving under the influence and resisting arrest. Afraid and distraught, Bankhead panicked, screaming for help and trying to wriggle free from the handcuffs, she testified.
Hoover shocked her repeatedly, she said. He even told her, in lewd language, that he was enjoying it and encouraged her to give him a reason to do it again, Bankhead told the court.
Defense lawyers countered that Bankhead was so drunk that she nearly collided head-on with a police cruiser and parked her car on a tree lawn when she finally pulled over. She could hardly walk, let alone complete a field sobriety test. And she was aggressive, yelling for her husband to attack the police who were arresting her, they said.
Attorneys for the officers also argued that Bankhead produced no evidence or documentation of injuries inflicted by the Taser and that she only experienced chest pains, a symptom of anxiety, after police tried to book her in jail.
The trial continues Tuesday.
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