Police brutality suit against Springfield alleges police yanked down man's pants, beat him in middle of busy street.

The city on Tuesday will begin defending itself in federal court against a police brutality lawsuit filed by a city man who said police yanked down his pants in the middle of a busy street and beat him during a 2007 arrest.
Terrence Thomas, of 120 Fargo St., in 2010 filed a complaint against the city and 10 police officers alleging a conspiracy to violate his civil rights, negligent hiring, assault and battery and infliction of emotional distress. He is seeking unspecified monetary damages and attorneys’ fees.
The lawsuit states that Thomas, 37, and a friend left the Blue Eagle bar on May 18, 2007. Police tailed Thomas’ car to the corner of Dwight and Congress streets, ordered him out and pulled his pants down during a search, then repeatedly kicked and punched him, according to the complaint.
Kevin B. Coyle, a lawyer for the patrolman’s union, said “there was a struggle that was precipitated by Thomas’ behavior” during the stop. Thomas was treated for a concussion and facial contusions at Wing Memorial Hospital in Palmer, according to the plaintiff.
Of the 10 officers originally named in the lawsuit, only four remain: Sgt. Steven Kent and officers John Wadlegger, Gregg A. Bigda and Robert Patruno.
Allegations against the remaining six were dismissed but they will likely be called as witnesses in what is expected to be a four-day trial in U.S. District Court.
Settlement talks characterized in a pretrial hearing on Wednesday as “90 percent there” by lawyers on both sides of the case fizzled by Thursday afternoon. Alan J. Black, a lawyer for Thomas, declined to detail the stalemate.
A lawyer for the city did not return a call for comment. City attorneys have argued a police informant tipped investigators that Thomas had at least an ounce of cocaine on him when he left the bar that night. Black countered that no drugs were found on Thomas when he was originally searched, or during a strip search at the police station.
“No illegal drugs were recovered during the search in the middle of the street when Mr. Thomas was humiliated and beaten,” Black wrote, later noting that a quantity of cocaine and marijuana only fell out of Thomas’ clothes after police returned them.
Thomas was acquitted of drug charges brought in connection with the incident in 2008.
The Springfield Police Department endured a public relations drubbing earlier this year when – after a trial in Chicopee District Court – former officer Jeffrey M. Asher was convicted for brutally beating a man during a traffic stop on Rifle Street. Asher was sentenced to 18 months in Franklin County jail and was stripped of his city pension.
Asher’s victim, Melvin Jones III, has since been charged with drug trafficking in an unrelated case and his trial started Friday in Hampden Superior Court.
Jones has a pending lawsuit of his own against police and the city in federal court, scheduled for trial on Oct. 15. He was left partially blind in one eye and suffered other injuries.