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City reaches $23,000 settlement with man pulled out of car window by police

The City Council is likely to approve a settlement with Garvin W. Bryant at its meeting this week.

February 24, 2015 at 12:39AM

The city of St. Paul has reached a $23,000 settlement with a man who was pulled out of a broken car window by police nearly three years ago and pepper sprayed.

The settlement is likely to be approved by the City Council at their Wednesday meeting.

Garvin W. Bryant, 43, of St. Paul, claims that in August of 2012, he was injured when police used excessive force as they swarmed his vehicle and yanked him out through the car window by his neck, according to a lawsuit against five officers that Bryant filed in federal court.The officers' actions allegedly caused Bryant's dialysis tubes to be ripped out during his arrest.

In court documents, Bryant said that he had been compliant with police, but the city said that his injuries were caused by his own misconduct.

In the amended complaint filed in January, Bryant names the officers involved as Teip Vixayvong, Steve J. Anderson, Kevin R. Sullivan, James D. Labarre and Christian A. Larsen.

According to Bryant's complaint:

A little after 6 p.m. on Aug. 15, 2012, Bryant was driving his car into the Super America gas station at 756 Snelling Av. N. when two police undercover SUVs pulled up in front and behind his vehicle. Four officers, with their weapons drawn, jumped out of each vehicle and ran towards Bryant's car to arrest him.

Bryant said he immediately raised his hands in the air as the officers yelled at him and that he was cooperative with police. But an officer smashed out the driver's side front window of his car and then another pepper sprayed him before both officers pulled him out of the vehicle by his head and neck.

While they forced him out of the window, he said, they raked his abdomen over the broken glass of the window causing his catheter to be ripped out. Bryant suffered from a chronic renal disease that required for him to have tubes affixed to his abdomen for his daily dialysis procedures.

Bryant said the officers slammed him down on the ground, causing his head to hit the concrete and briefly knocking him out. While his hands were pulled behind his back, Bryan said he was punched and pepper sprayed again.

In an answer to the complaint, Cheri M. Sisk, a city attorney, admitted that the officers pulled Bryant through one of the vehicle's windows and that one of the officers was holding Bryant's neck "to prevent him from swallowing the narcotics he just placed in his mouth." Sisk also said that Bryant was pepper sprayed.

Sisk denied that Bryant was being fully cooperative during the arrest. She wrote that his alleged injuries were caused by "his own acts or misconduct."