Fall River Settles Another Police Civil Rights Lawsuit. Here’s How Much It Cost.

FALL RIVER — The city has set­tled anoth­er civ­il rights law­suit against the Fall River Police Department, this time with an $80,000 award.

This lat­est set­tle­ment is one in a string of offi­cer-relat­ed civ­il law­suits that has cost the city hun­dreds of thou­sands of dollars.

Corey Ferreira, a Fall River native and a cor­rec­tions offi­cer with the Commonwealth, filed the law­suit in fed­er­al court against patrol offi­cers Derek Oagles, Frederick Mello and for­mer FRPD offi­cer Thomas Roberts in June 2020.

Ferreira suf­fered seri­ous injuries includ­ing bro­ken ribs, and a col­lapsed lung that required emer­gency room med­ical staff insert­ing a breath­ing tube in his chest, dur­ing an arrest out­side The Cove Restaurant on Aug. 17, 2017, as he and a friend were wait­ing for a cab. He said the injuries were sus­tained while he was in hand­cuffs and on the ground.

The city settled the case on Jan. 9

Ferreira’s attor­ney, Georgi J. Vogel-Rosen, indi­cat­ed in an email that she was pleased with the out­come of the civ­il case against the city.

“Corey Ferreira suf­fered sig­nif­i­cant injuries, includ­ing a col­lapsed lung, bro­ken ribs, and per­ma­nent nerve dam­age. He spent 20 months fight­ing base­less crim­i­nal charges, until they ulti­mate­ly were dis­missed by the District Attorney. This set­tle­ment fur­ther vin­di­cates him and allows him to put this ter­ri­ble trau­ma behind him,” wrote Vogel-Rosen. “Lawsuits such as this one send a mes­sage to police depart­ments that vio­la­tions of con­sti­tu­tion­al rights expose cities and towns to sub­stan­tial liability.

Ferreira, who has worked in the state prison sys­tem for the past 15 years, said it cost him $10,000 in legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion to fight the felony assault charges for alleged­ly fight­ing with the offi­cers. He said the Bristol County District Attorney’s office dropped the case on the first day of tri­al when some of the police offi­cer wit­ness­es failed to appear. He said the charges could have cost him his career as a cor­rec­tions officer.

“What I went through was a night­mare. It is ter­ri­fy­ing to know that there are police offi­cers in this city get­ting away with false accu­sa­tions and bru­tal­i­ty this severe with­out being held account­able,” said Ferreira.

According to the terms of the set­tle­ment agree­ment pro­vid­ed by City Solicitor Alan Rumsey, the city and the offi­cers involved do not admit to any wrong­do­ing or lia­bil­i­ty asso­ci­at­ed with the 2017 inci­dent, and Ferreira can­not take any fur­ther action.

Taser death:Fall River set­tles civ­il rights law­suit relat­ed to 2016 stun gun death, but denies wrongdoing

Roberts was fired from the police depart­ment for stat­ing false­hoods in police reports after he tes­ti­fied in a grand jury against fel­low offi­cer at the time, Michael Pessoa who is set to go to tri­al start­ing in February for assault­ing three men in custody.

Awaiting tri­al:Former Fall River cop Michael Pessoa will face three tri­als for using exces­sive force

Settlements and still pending civil rights lawsuits

Just in the past sev­en months, the city has shelled out $460,000 in police-relat­ed civ­il set­tle­ments, includ­ing the Ferreira case.

Most recent­ly, the city paid out $65,000 this past sum­mer in a claim against city police offi­cer Nicholas Hoar for the assault on William Harvey, who was in cus­tody at the FRPD head­quar­ters in December 2020 after an arrest on a domes­tic complaint.

Hoar was indict­ed by a fed­er­al grand jury for the alleged assault in November for the alleged assault against Harvey after an FBI probe, and is free with­out bail while he awaits tri­al. He is cur­rent­ly on paid admin­is­tra­tive leave from the police department.

Details sought:As inves­ti­ga­tion in shoot­ing death of 19-year-old con­tin­ues, few details revealed

Hoar claimed he used a police baton to sub­due an unco­op­er­a­tive Harvey, but a police book­ing room video shows him shov­ing a hand­cuffed pris­on­er from behind into the cell.

Harvey has claimed that Hoar assault­ed him as he was being brought into the police sta­tion and was hos­pi­tal­ized dur­ing his arrest.

Taser death lawsuit

In May, the city set­tled a civ­il rights law­suit for $315,000 in the Taser-relat­ed death of 48-year-old Scott Macomber, which occurred in May 2016.

Fall River had already paid out an addi­tion­al $237,000 to set­tle two exces­sive-force law­suits involv­ing Pessoa, with anoth­er civ­il rights case pend­ing by of the for­mer officer’s alleged vic­tims in his crim­i­nal case.

Both Pessoa and Hoar are two of approx­i­mate­ly two dozen defen­dants in a mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar law­suit brought by the fam­i­ly of a 19-year-old New Bedford man shot by Hoar in the Fall River Industrial Park in 2017.

And the city is fac­ing a new law­suit filed at the end of December in fed­er­al court, this time with alle­ga­tions that a man was severe­ly injured by police in 2020, when police received a call about a per­son with a gun and respond­ed to the wrong apartment.

This arti­cle orig­i­nal­ly appeared on The Herald News: