Annapolis has settled a 1990 federal lawsuit, in which a police officer was charged with brutality, for $85,000 in the largest out-of-court award in city history.
The case was among four lawsuits filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore that charge city police officers with using excessive force or brutality.
Pamela J. Tydings and her son, William E. Tydings Jr., of the 1800 block of Bowman Court, claimed that Annapolis Officer George Kelley fractured the youth's skull while arresting him in March 1990.
The city's Self Insurance Fund Committee voted to settle the $1.25 million suit in early October. City Council members were notified Monday of the out-of-court settlement by City Attorney Jonathan Hodgson.
"This was a very serious case," said Alderman Carl O. Snowden, D-Ward 5, who first heard the complaint at a community meeting in 1990. "My reading of the case is it had all the indications of one that should be settled."
The suit was filed after Officer Kelley allegedly beat and handcuffed William Tydings, then a juvenile, while arresting him on his way home from a recreation center. He was charged with resisting arrest, assault and battery, interfering with an officer and disorderly conduct, but the charges were dismissed by a Circuit Court judge.