Two police officers already facing a federal lawsuit for shooting and killing a man during St. Patrick's Day festivities on the South Side have been named again in a separate incident.
Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Samuel Nassan and Pittsburgh police Sgt. Terrence Donnelly are accused of battery and civil rights violations stemming from an incident July 6, 2008.
David Palmer said he was pulled over in the 1000 block of East Carson Street early that morning. When Trooper Nassan approached the driver's side, Mr. Palmer said he told the officer he had a permit to carry a concealed firearm and a gun in his pocket.
"Nassan, without reason and without provocation, violently struck plaintiff in the head, neck and face," the lawsuit said.
The complaint goes on to say Trooper Nassan and Sgt. Donnelly, as well as Pittsburgh Officer Sheila Ladner then forced Mr. Palmer to the ground, repeatedly striking him and then shooting him with a Taser in his chest.
The lawsuit also names as defendants the Pennsylvania State Police and city of Pittsburgh.
Calls to both agencies Monday evening were not returned.
Trooper Nassan and Sgt. Donnelly were named in another lawsuit filed in April 2009 after Nicholas Haniotakis, 33, of the South Side, was shot multiple times after a police chase in the early morning hours of March 15, 2009.
Mr. Haniotakis was driving his SUV in the wrong lane on 13th Street with a headlight out.
Sgt. Donnelly and Trooper Nassan were working in uniform in an unmarked state police vehicle as part of a roving DUI patrol that morning.
Mr. Haniotakis nearly broadsided the police car, police said, and a chase ensued when he failed to pull over. Mr. Haniotakis crashed at 22nd and Wharton streets.
Trooper Nassan and Sgt. Donnelly got out and ordered the driver to show his hands. Instead, he "put his vehicle in reverse and struck the unmarked police vehicle nearly hitting one of the officers and drove forward toward the other officer," police said.
They fired at Mr. Haniotakis, killing him.
That was the second time Trooper Nassan was involved in a fatal shooting of a fleeing suspect.
A federal court jury in 2008 awarded $28 million to the Uniontown family of Michael Ellerbe, a 12-year-old boy who was shot in the back as Trooper Nassan and another state trooper chased him on suspicion that he was a car thief. The family settled the case for $12.5 million.
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10194/1072373-53.stm?cmpid=neighborhoods.xml#ixzz0tZEbKoRJ
