Page 4 - Florida Sentinel 7-8-22

Family Settles 8-Year Lawsuit Against TPD After Patriarch’s Death
ARTHUR GREEN, JR. 4/3/1951 --- 4/16/2014
MRS. LENA YOUNG GREEN ... Widow of Arthur Green, Jr.
BY IRIS B. HOLTON Sentinel City Editor
Recently, the family of a Tampa man, killed while in police custody, settled a wrongful death lawsuit.
For the past 8 years, the family of Mr. Arthur Green, Jr., has been in a legal battle with the City of Tampa. Mr. Green had suf- fered a medical emergency, when a motorist called 9-1-1 to state that he was driving reck- lessly.
On April 16, 2014, around 4:30 p.m., Tampa police stopped him on Central Avenue. The officers said when they arrived at the scene, Mr. Green, 63, was combative and had to be restrained and handcuffed with the help of a second officer.
At that point, Mr. Green stopped breath- ing. The officers performed CPR until the Tampa Fire Department arrived and trans- ported him to St. Joseph’s Hospital, where he died.
Then Tampa Police Chief Jane Castor said, “Officers are trained to recognize and ask the appropriate questions. They are trained to recognize indicators from someone under the influence of alcohol and narcotics as it differs in a medical emergency.”
It was later determined that Mr. Green suffered a diabetic episode, which accounted for his behavior.
The family has agreed to settle the lawsuit. However, there are several is- sues of concern remaining. They re- leased the following statement:
“Due to recent developments in our eight- year long fight for justice and accountability in the killing of Mr. Arthur Green, Jr., on April 16, 2014, while in the custody of Tampa Police, the family of Mr. Arthur Green, Jr., accepted City of Tampa Mayor Jane Castor’s offer that the City of Tampa pays the full statutory limit available to Arthur Green’s family.
The reasons for the agreement are as fol- lows:
1) The Family found vindication in a sen- sitive matter related to the case. We will ad- dress this at a date soon to be determine.
2) The family of Arthur Green, Jr., succeeded in pressuring the City of Tampa to ban its SOPs for the hogtying, whereby a person is restrained by having their hands and feet shackled together behind the person’s back, for putting direct weight on a person re- stricted to a prone position, and other de-es- calation-related procedures.
However, Mayor Castor, TPD Police Chief when Arthur Green died in police cus- tody, rejected the Family’s request for an offi- cial apology. The request was based on TPD’s a) demeaning press statements and mischar- acterizations of Mr. Green as a drunken and reckless motorist, b) disparaging statements depicting Mr. Green as “combative” while he suffered a diabetic crisis that rendered him in urgent need of medical assistance, and c) mak- ing misleading public comments about the ap- propriateness of the officers’ actions prior to the completion of an investigation.
Also, in our commitment to help protect future diabetic motorists in our community from police-related deaths like that of Arthur Green, Jr., we requested that the City of Tampa implements procedures that assign to communities experienced TPD officers who are sensitive to neighborhoods and residents they patrol.
The Family also requested the requiring of officers to work with community groups to help address community issues.
Mayor Jane Castor refused these good- faith policies as well.
As a result, of these refusals, the Family will no longer seek to meet with Mayor Jane Castor for a “sit-down” discussion. We will, however, redouble our community-based ef- forts to raise awareness of the killing of Arthur Green, Jr., advocate for policing re- forms to prevent police-related killings, and to find solutions to the crisis of diabetes in African American communities. Updates, events, and activities related to these efforts will be forthcoming.”
A statement sent by the City of Tampa spokesperson Adam Smith states, “We are awaiting final approval of the settlement agreement before commenting and can better explain the facts after that approval occurs.”
America Is Moving Backwards
Between the Supreme Court, Republicans in Congress, and Republican led state legislatures, we face a future of a return to government intrusion into the rights and privacy of U.S. citizens.
Based upon Supreme Court rulings and laws passed by state legislatures, we face a return to pollution and smog-filled cities and rural areas, poor and hungry women with unwanted children, government regulated healthcare decisions for women and transgender youth, physicians and healthcare workers who can decide they don’t want to treat gay, lesbian, HIV patients, transgen- der youth and adults, same sex couples or interracial couples. During elections, voting will become more dif- ficult as more people show up at the polls.
The recent Supreme Court ruling regarding a lawsuit filed against the Environmental Protection Agency’s au- thority to regulate pollution allows power companies to continue to use or restart the use of coal-fired furnaces to generate electricity, producing carbon dioxide. Cur- rently, these plants account for 30% of all carbon diox- ide pollution. Ironically, the same day as the Supreme Court ruling, the United Nations announced that the cli- mate change effects “will get much worse and will likely make the world sicker, hungrier, poorer and more dan- gerous in the coming years.” The lawsuit began when President Obama launched a Clean Power Plan that re- quired “power plants to reduce emissions from the gen- eration of electricity by coal fired plants. Even though hundreds of coal fired plants closed, the plan was placed on hold by the lawsuit in 2016. The suit was filed by 19 mostly Republican states and coal companies. At least 3 cities in Alaska, and five cities in California top the list of the most polluted cities in America.
Moreover, the ruling will take the country back to pre-1990 when our country was twice as polluted as it is today. Thanks to the EPA for a 50% drop in overall pol- lution, an 82% reduction in lead, a 74% reduction in car- bon monoxide, and 57% reduction in nitrogen and a reduction in other gases in the air, we can breathe eas- ier.
Come future elections we have a lot of Republicans to vote out of office. So, get ready to vote!
Editorial Feature
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