The family of Jim Rogers, a man who died in what attorneys have called the “most egregious lack of humanity” by Pittsburgh police, have settled a wrongful death lawsuit.
Attorney Todd Hollis announced the $8 million settlement on Thursday afternoon while standing on Harriet Street in Bloomfield, the spot where Rogers in 2021 was stunned by a Taser multiple times by Pittsburgh police. Mr. Hollis said the settlement was the highest payout from the city in any civil rights case.
He also called on city officials to act on more than 30 proposed policing changes.
“I want to know that when I’m long gone our children will live in a better place than what exists now,” Mr. Hollis said. “Harriet Street will go down in infamy as one of those neighborhoods that committed one of the worst crimes in human history.”
Rogers, 54, died Oct. 14, 2021, a day after his encounter with police who were responding to an alleged bicycle theft in Bloomfield.
Attorneys confirmed the settlement Wednesday. It came almost a year after the federal lawsuit was filed, naming the city, police and paramedics as defendants.
Mayor Ed Gainey released a statement on the settlement.
“My heart is with Jim Rogers’s family, friends, and loved ones today. As we put his family’s lawsuit against the city behind us, the city continues to pray for the family over this unnecessary loss of life. ...
“In addition to the monetary remedy of this settlement, we will also be reviewing our use of force policies with the family and other advocates. We are committed to changing policing in our city and working to rebuild community police relationships so that everyone in Pittsburgh feels safe.”
The suit raised numerous civil rights claims, including excessive force, medical indifference, false arrest, assault, due process violations and negligent training for officers.
City officials have declined to identify the officers involved, but five officers were fired in March 2022 in connection with the incident. Three others were disciplined.
According to the lawsuit, Officer Keith Edmonds shocked Rogers with the Taser nine or 10 times and other officers ignored Rogers’ pleas for medical help.
“Mr. Rogers died after being accused of a crime that he never committed,” Mr. Hollis said. “500,000 volts of electricity over the course of a two minute period went through the body of a 54-year-old man who wasn’t a threat to anybody.”
Police were called to Harriet Street after a woman called 911 to report that a man had taken a bike from her neighbor’s porch. Other neighbors have since said that the bike had been left outside for anyone to take.
Officer Edmonds responded, questioned Rogers and searched him for weapons. He had none.
A video of the incident shows Officer Edmonds threw Rogers to the ground and “unreasonably escalated the matter by yelling at Rogers. The officer then employed his Taser,” according to the lawsuit.
Additional officers arrived a few minutes later.
The original report of the incident from Pittsburgh Public Safety said Rogers became “non-compliant” while being arrested, prompting the deployment of a Taser. Witnesses, however, said police used the Taser on Rogers multiple times despite his non-violent attempts to comply with their commands.
The suit states that Rogers repeatedly asked for medical care at the scene and to be taken to a hospital, but no one responded to his requests.
Instead, officers took him toward the Allegheny County Jail, driving past the nearby West Penn Hospital.
When they were approaching the jail they determined that Rogers’ condition was declining so they took him to UPMC Mercy. He died the next day.
“Jim Rogers wasn’t welcome on this street,” Mr. Hollis said. “Apparently he didn’t fit in. He was treated worse than any animal in the street.”
The medical examiner’s office ruled Mr. Rogers’ death as an accident, citing an injury that occurs when blood flow to the brain is interrupted.
“What is there to say,” Rogers’s brother James Frierson said. “I’ve watched that happen over and over again. It’s the most inhumane thing I’ve ever seen, even if he was not my brother. It was just unreasonable.”
Mr. Frierson added that “there’s never going to be closure” for him or his niece. “You can’t unsee what we saw.”
Tim Stevens, chairman and CEO of the Black Political Empowerment Project, described Rogers as a “gentle soul. Anybody who met him would know that. He was not a threat to anybody. Just because he was born Black or maybe dark, maybe that meant something to somebody but he was a human being.”
The family is now asking the city to act on police reform. The changes, deemed “The Jim Rogers’s Rules,” suggest how to improve the culture of policing in the city, how and when officers use force and Tasers, when medical care is required and officer discipline.
The 32 proposed changes include training officers to de-escalate situations; creating a public database that includes information about every use of force incident in the city; requiring superiors to remind officers that all use of force incidents have the potential to kill and developing and implementing rules for Taser deployment.
Additionally, the changes call for a rule that any request for medical care by a suspect stops an arrest until medical care is given. The goal, Mr. Hollis said, is to create a policy that does not give police “unilateral authority” to decide when someone receives medical care.
The city has 30 days to respond.
“My hope,” Mr. Stevens said, “is that we have no more cases where the city has to pour out millions of dollars because the officers are trained at the level that they need to be, disciplined at the level they need to be disciplined and that our city respects people regardless of color, regardless of age, regardless of orientation. That we’re treated as human beings.”
First Published: April 27, 2023, 9:21 p.m.
Updated: April 28, 2023, 2:48 p.m.