A Forest Park man has accepted a $54,900 settlement from the village of Forest Park in return for dropping a federal lawsuit that alleged a Forest Park police officer “physically attacked” and knocked his teeth out in 2015. The agreement, which includes attorneys’ fees and court costs, did not state that the village’s insurer would cover the cost. It was completed on Nov. 16, according to a copy obtained by the Forest Park Review through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Tyrone Roney filed the suit in June 2017 in U.S. District Court’s Northern District of Illinois, against the village and Officer Scott McClintock of the Forest Park Police Department. According to the terms of the settlement, the village and others named in the suit do not admit liability or wrongdoing.
The agreement also includes a confidentiality clause limiting comments by Roney. Under the clause, for which the village will pay an additional $100, Roney has agreed to keep the terms of the agreement confidential, other than to state that the matter has been resolved.
On June 15, 2015, Roney was in a “landlord discussion” at his residence at 516 Desplaines Ave., across the street from the Forest Park Police Department, 517 Desplaines Ave., according to the suit.
McClintock arrived at the residence and he and Roney started talking, the suit claims. The complaint alleges that McClintock knew Roney before the incident. In 2011, the Review reported that Forest Park police arrested a 55-year-old man named Tyrone Roney for a hit-and-run.
The two were talking, with Roney standing at the top of a staircase in the home. McClintock then began “to yell and scream” at him before he “charged up the stairs and attacked Roney,” the suit says.
He then arrested Roney for aggravated assault, resisting arrest and battery, as a “cover up,” according to the suit. A judge ruled in April 2015 that Roney was not guilty of those charges.
Three other cases are pending in U.S. District Court, alleging excessive force by Forest Park police.
In February 2018, the family of Marco Gomez alleged that Forest Park police, in 2017, fatally shot Gomez “without cause or provocation” after they caught him in a stolen car. The suit is ongoing and the village denies most of the Gomez family’s claims. The same month, plaintiff Giovanni LaGioia filed a federal lawsuit alleging a local police officer roughly searched him during a traffic stop in December 2017.
And in June 2018, a man filed a federal lawsuit against three local police officers and the village of Forest Park, alleging officers used excessive force and denied him medical treatment after arresting him for armed robbery in 2016.
CONTACT: ntepper@wjinc.com
