Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Cop files suit against neighboring police department

A Colwyn cop claims in a federal civil rights law suit that officers from neighboring Darby Borough, including the police chief, assaulted him and called him racially-derogatory names because he assisted a man who was beaten in their jurisdiction and held the assailant until Darby police arrived.

19 comments

Cop files suit against neighboring police department

POSTED: Monday, August 20, 2012, 4:42 PM

A Colwyn cop claims in a federal civil rights law suit that officers from neighboring Darby Borough, including the police chief, assaulted him and called him racially-derogatory names because he assisted a man who was beaten in their jurisdiction and held the assailant until Darby police arrived.

The March 18, 2011 incident was captured on video by a civilian, and though much of the action is obscured by a vehicle, at one point in the video an officer can be heard repeatedly yelling "Get the f*** out of Darby!"

Colwyn Ofc. Clinton Craddock said he was in a marked car in Colwyn when a woman flagged him down and told him a man had been assaulted and was unconscious two blocks away, according to the suit.

Craddock claims he went to the scene, which was in Darby, and was able to apprehend the assailant and hold him until Darby police arrived.

He claims he was sitting in his Colwyn police cruiser with the door open and one leg out of the car when Darby police Chief Robert Smythe arrived on scene and began yelling at him to not come in the town again, the suit said. Craddock, who is black, claims Smythe, who is white, called him a racially-derogatory name and then slammed his car door on his leg.

Craddock claims other Darby cops at the scene, all of whom were white, failed to come to his aid.

As a result of the encounter, Craddock claims Darby cops jammed his radio frequencies to prevent him from contacting police dispatchers, the suit said. He also believes several harassing phone calls he received after the incident may have come from Darby cops.

According to the suit, Craddock believes the treatment he received was based on his race. As a result of the encounter, he claims he's suffered pain, humiliation, a twitching eye, shakes and hair loss.

The 26-page suit is riddled with grammatical errors, including the repeated misspeling of Smythe's name. One section of the suit reads "It is conduct so shocking under the circumstances as to make a person who see or hear of the conduct to exclaim 'shocking.'"

(Brian Puricelli, the lawyer who filed this typo-ridden lawsuit on behalf of Ofc. Clinton Craddock, has been written up in the New York Times before for his poor writing. I especially like the part where Puricelli called the local federal district court the "United States District Court for the Easter District of Pennsylvania.")

Smythe did not immediately return a request for comment. The Delaware County District Attorney's Office, which launched an investigation in to the incident, also did not immediately return a request for comment as to the status of the investigation.



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19 comments
Comments  (20)
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 4:56 PM, 08/20/2012
    HAHA waring police factions, is this Sryia or PA?
    Taxpaying Voter
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 5:02 PM, 08/20/2012
    This comment has been deleted.
    RufusG
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 9:37 PM, 08/20/2012
    Reasons 1 through infinity to point and laugh at RufusG and its ilk: they're so upset that their imagined star of white supremacy no longer enjoys the trajectory that it did in the good ole days, and their brains (which weren't too robust to begin with) have become so addled at the shock of it all, that all they can do is spend their useless lives posting (anonymously--no more "respectable" white citizens' councils, after all) one derivative racist inanity after another on the internet.
    wb2nd
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 5:11 PM, 08/20/2012
    @Rufus - Unfortunatly, I have to agree and its organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center, NAACP and other liberal orgs that promote such litigeous and divisive measures.
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 5:30 PM, 08/20/2012
    The Daily News / Philly.com pointing out grammatical errors is truly the pot calling the kettle black.
    Sir John Falstaff
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 6:32 PM, 08/20/2012
    If you are not a cop, and I'm not, don't try to figure this out. You don't know the rules and you probably can't think like a cop. Cops do what they want anyway. The Colwyn cop started off with a good deed. After that. . . who knows? Too much anger for armed police.
    Go Eagles. You guys are paid to be angry and violent and shake hands after the game is over.
    Jack Hughes
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 6:59 PM, 08/20/2012
    This guy, Brian Puricelli, seems like a real winner. If I am facing a death penalty trial, I want him representing me. Did he attend PENNCO Tech Institute of Heating, Air Conditioning And Law?

    http://members.mobar.org/pdfs/precedent/aug09/abrams.pdf
    Hack Stone
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 7:04 PM, 08/20/2012
    Eagles only kill dogs ,drop passes that hit them in the hands, are afraid to go over the middle, can't manage the clock properly and many worms were killed because of the Eagles. Can't tackle etc, etc etc, 80% of them will go bankrupt after they stop playing ball.
    I like this part As a result of the encounter, he claims he's suffered pain, humiliation, a twitching eye, shakes and hair loss. I'm sure that what happens to Jack Hughes after the Eagles loose a football game.
    Dexter-Morgan
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 7:06 PM, 08/20/2012
    Wow you mean a black person is accusing a white person (s) of being a racist? I can't believe it! Say it isn't so Jesse, Al, Jerome.
    Mr. Barffington
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 7:19 PM, 08/20/2012
    Hack Stone, Thanks for the laugh, I liked this line.“If these mistakes were purposeful,” the magistrate judge concluded in Devore, “they would be brilliant.”
    Dexter-Morgan
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 7:24 PM, 08/20/2012
    I just watch the game with my wife. If the Eagles score, we sing the song. If they lose, she gets grumpy and I watch something else. Compare this to your post:
    "I like my beer cold…my TV loud…and my homosexuals flaming."
    I like my way better.
    Jack Hughes
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 7:24 PM, 08/20/2012
    It's all good.
    Tkat
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 7:43 PM, 08/20/2012
    Unprofessional conduct should never be tolerated. If the police did what is alleged, they need to be suspended or fired. Nobody needs hotheads with guns running around.
    nikki1231
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 8:16 PM, 08/20/2012
    I'm amazed that a cop from a neighboring department would have the b@lls to argue like that with the chief of the town that he is in and may not even have the jurisdiction to make an arrest.
    Meat_Puppet
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 9:48 PM, 08/20/2012
    Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Time to merge all these local police departments.
    Thelonius Monk


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In The Daily Delco blog, Daily News reporters William Bender and Stephanie Farr dig up all the dirt - from crazy crimes to political malfeasance and everything in between - in Delaware County.

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