Rodney Hinton Jr. is still very much in the center of societal conversations about self-defense, vigilantism, and growing frustration with police violence against Black people. BOSSIP has been covering the case of the 38-year-old who stands accused of killing a police officer with his car after his 18-year-old son Ryan Hinton was shot dead by officers the day before.
According to new reporting by NBC News, Hinton Jr. has filed a $25 million lawsuit against Cincinnati police and the Hamilton County Justice Center of violation of due process, false imprisonment, and excessive force during his arrest. The complaint states that Hinton “appeared visibly beaten” during his court appearance where officers gathered to “[create] an atmosphere of fear, surveillance, and intimidation.”
In a strange twist, Hinton’s legal counsel Attorney Clyde Bennett, does not support the lawsuit and said that it was filed by another woman on Hinton’s behalf. The lawsuit is requesting that Hinton be paid $5 million in compensatory damages and another $20 million in punitive damages.
Cincinnati.com says that not only did Bennett not know about the suit, Hinton didn’t know either.
“We were totally unaware of it until it was reported by the media,” attorney Clyde Bennett II told The Enquirer on May 13. He added that the complaint appears to be “frivolous” because it wasn’t filed by an attorney.
The filing charges that the inordinate amount of officers attending Hinton’s arraignment is evidence of their desire to scare the grieving father.
“No reasonable law enforcement agency would subject a pretrial defendant to this level of physical restraint, humiliation, and psychological warfare absent a coordinated plan to discriminate, punish, and intimidate,” the lawsuit states.
We will continue to follow both cases as they move forward.
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