City settles G-20 lawsuit with Pitt student, alumnus

The city of Pittsburgh settled a G-20 lawsuit with a Pitt student and Pitt alumnus on Monday for… The city of Pittsburgh settled a G-20 lawsuit with a Pitt student and Pitt alumnus on Monday for $60,000.

U.S. Army 2nd Lt. Ryan Kingston and Pitt junior Nathan Poloni sued the city in November 2010. The lawsuit said that they were subject to “de facto martial law” and that their constitutional rights were suspended when police arrested them on Sept. 24, 2009, outside of Litchfield Towers.

The city and Timothy P. O’Brien, the men’s attorney, settled the lawsuit out of court.

City Solicitor Daniel Regan said that the city’s insurance carrier will pay for the settlement. He said that the city is self-insured but obtained additional insurance for the 2009 summit.

“We believe that was the most prudent decision to settle the claims for $60,000,” Regan said, adding that the plaintiffs and their counsel will decide how to distribute the money.

Regan said that they do not typically discuss settlement negotiations but he did not believe that O’Brien asked for specific damages.

O’Brien could not be reached for immediate comment.

The lawsuit said that the plaintiffs sought punitive damages, the award for attorneys’ fees and costs in excess of $50,000.

At the time of the arrest, Kingston was a senior resident assistant in Tower A and Poloni was a freshman living in the dorm. The lawsuit said that the two men “had no role in any protest.”  

It said that on the night of the arrests they were “swept off the street” by uniformed police officers “who assaulted them, imprisoned them, put them in fear of serious bodily harm, and held them against their will over a period of several hours.”

The suit said that Kingston was “assaulted by uniform police officers” when entering Towers. He was handcuffed and “forcibly removed to a stone wall in front of the Cornerstone Church on Fifth Avenue,” where he was “subjected to a forcible search as he was bent over the wall where he remained for approximately an hour.”

The lawsuit said that Poloni was visiting friends that night in the Quad. When he attempted to return to Towers, he was “assaulted by uniformed police officers, who placed him in a choke hold and threw him to the ground.”

According to the suit, police charged Kingston with disorderly conduct, and both Kingston and Poloni were charged with failure to disperse. All of the charges were dismissed prior to the filing of the lawsuit.

Editor’s note: The spelling of “de facto martial law” has been changed in this story. It originally quoted the lawsuit, which had the term spelled incorrectly.