Council Approves $258,000 Award for Police Brutality Victim

Portland Mercury:

Dan Halsted after his 2008 arrest.The four-year-old case of a Portland man accosted by cops who mistook him for a tagger—and then Tasered him repeatedly—came to a quiet close this morning. The Portland City Council voted unanimously (with Mayor Sam Adams, the city's police commissioner, absent) to pay Dan Halsted $258,040 in exchange for a promise that Halsted would take no further action against the city. A federal jury last month had already awarded Halsted, the fellow behind Hollywood Theater's Grindhouse Film Festival, $206,372 in cumulative damages. Halsted's attorney and the city eventually agreed to the rest of the money to settle Halsted's legal bills and other costs. Halsted's story first appeared in the Mercury. It went like this: He was tackled while walking home from a bar on NE Broadway after getting drunk. Halsted said he felt a bright light, heard someone shout for him, and then ran—before he was Tasered five times. His face was also ground into the pavement, and witnesses said police tried to keep him from getting help after he was arrested. Later, a deputy district attorney found no probable cause to charge Halsted with tagging or any other crime. Halsted even had a receipt from the bar where he'd been drinking. The council vote was initially placed on the city's consent agenda, among a list of city items that are approved all at once with no discussion. Portland Copwatch's Dan Handelman asked that it be pulled off that list so he, at least, could talk about it. [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

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