SEATTLE (AP) - A federal jury has found that a white former Seattle police officer who arrested a black man using a golf club as a cane engaged in racial discrimination.
The Seattle Times reports (https://goo.gl/iiqzfm ) jurors reached the unanimous verdict Tuesday against Cynthia Whitlatch after starting deliberations Monday in the civil-rights lawsuit. The eight-member jury awarded $325,000 in compensatory damages to William Wingate.
The lawsuit stemmed from Whitlatch’s arrest of then 69-year-old Wingate while he was walking with the golf club in Seattle in July 2014.
Whitlatch, a 49-year-old longtime officer, was fired as a result of the incident.
In court, she denied race played a role in her decision to detain Wingate after she says he swung a golf club toward her patrol car as she drove by him.
Wingate maintained he never swung the club.
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Information from: The Seattle Times, https://www.seattletimes.com
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