From [HERE]

In November 2008, a Minneapolis man named Quincy DeShawn Smith got the good news that an appeals court had reinstated his lawsuit accusing city police officers of excessive force.

Three weeks later, he was dead. The 24-year-old former disc jockey died after he was chased and subdued by five Minneapolis police officers who allegedly punched him, kneed him in the ribs, hit him with the butt of a shotgun and zapped him with a Taser at least seven times.

Smith's mother is now suing the city and the five officers. She claims her son's death stemmed, in part, from officer Timothy Devick's retaliation against Smith for suing him in the excessive-force case.

"Defendant Devick's retaliatory conduct was intentional, deliberate, willful and conducted in callous disregard of, and gross indifference to, Smith's constitutional rights," says the wrongful-death and civil-rights suit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis.

The suit says that because of the retaliation, Smith suffered "embarrassment, emotional distress, humiliation, loss, indignity and, ultimately, he lost his life."

City Attorney Susan Segal said through a spokesman: "The city attorney's office has yet to receive this lawsuit. If we receive it, we will review and respond appropriately."

Stephen Smith, the Minneapolis lawyer representing Betty Smith, who filed the suit as trustee for Smith's next of kin, did not return a call for comment.

Quincy Smith's December 2008 death sparked vigils and protests in the city's black community. Going by the air name "Q the Blacksmith," he had been a DJ at KMOJ-FM. He also had worked as a teacher assistant at Seed Academy & Harvest Preparatory School in Minneapolis.

A Chase Through The Snow / The events that led to Smith's death began early Dec. 9, 2008, when Minneapolis police got a call to respond to an argument in the 1000 block of Knox Avenue North. The argument was reportedly between a woman and her ex-boyfriend.

A few hours earlier, Smith had been released from jail after he was charged with misdemeanor domestic assault. One condition of his release was to stay away from the Knox Avenue residence and the woman who lived there.

The suit says Devick, who joined the police force in September 1993, responded to the call. On the way, a dispatcher told him that the suspect, armed with a rifle, was at the front door of the home.

About a block away, Devick spotted Smith running between two houses. The officer got out, drew his gun and began chasing Smith through the fresh-fallen snow.

The suit says Devick ordered Smith to the ground, but Smith refused. Smith ran and the officer grabbed his jacket, but Smith wriggled free and kept running.

By this time, officers Shawn Brandt, Chris Humphrey, Carlos Baires-Escobar and Nicholas McCarthy were involved in the chase; they caught Smith and pushed him to the ground.

"The officers used various techniques to subdue ... Smith, including four to seven punches to his face and head, seven to eight multi-second Taser contacts, six knee strikes to his ribs, and a strike to his upper back with the butt of a shotgun," the suit contends. "The officers also applied their physical force and strength on Smith, while maintaining their body weight on top of him and alongside him as they did so."

The suit notes none of the officers ever saw Smith with a rifle or any other weapon, "and he had none on his person when he was subdued."

The officers eventually handcuffed Smith, and Devick claimed that he rolled Smith onto his right shoulder.

"When he noticed Smith was not breathing, he rolled him onto his back and started chest compressions, while other officers called for an ambulance," the suit said.

Acquittal, Then Lawsuit / Smith was dead on arrival at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis. The Hennepin County medical examiner listed the causes of death as assault, cardiac arrest, obesity and hypertensive heart disease.

The officers were placed on paid administrative leave, as is routine. They were later cleared of wrongdoing by the Minneapolis Police Department's internal affairs unit, as well as by a Hennepin County grand jury.

At the time he died, Smith was a plaintiff in a personal-injury suit against Devick and five other officers. That suit stemmed from Smith's July 13, 2005, arrest after he tried to intervene when officers arrested one of Smith's friends as he left a downtown Minneapolis club.

Smith asked the officers why they were arresting his friend, and they told him to step back. He did but asked a second time, and then a third. After the third, an officer decided to arrest Smith, too.

Smith claimed he was compliant, but the officers said he wasn't and had tried to pull away from them. He and several officers wound up struggling, and Smith was "taken to the ground, kicked in the shoulder, kneed in the side, maced, punched and subjected to multiple cycles of electrical shock from a Taser," an appeals court later wrote.

Smith was charged with disorderly conduct and obstructing legal process, but he proclaimed his innocence and demanded a jury trial. In December 2005, a jury in Hennepin County District Court acquitted him of both counts.

A year and a half later, Smith filed suit in state court against the city, Devick and the other five officers. He accused them of assault, battery, false arrest and false imprisonment.

Lawyers for the city of Minneapolis and the officers claimed official immunity and asked that the case be thrown out. In October 2007, Hennepin County District Judge John Holahan dismissed the case.

Smith appealed the dismissal to the Minnesota Court of Appeals. In a Nov. 18, 2008, opinion, that court ruled Holahan had erred in dismissing the entire case. The court said that while the judge was right to dismiss Smith's claim for punitive damages, there was "a genuine issue of material fact ... with regard to the reasonableness of the officers' initial force" and that Smith should have his day in court.

On Feb. 19, 2009, two months after Smith died, the suit was dismissed.

The federal suit filed by Betty Smith alleges wrongful death, unreasonable seizure and "retaliation for engaging in First Amendment activity."

"(Quincy) Smith spoke out on a matter of public concern when he filed his 2007 lawsuit alleging police misconduct," the suit says.

The suit says Smith's mother will prove "that defendant Devick took adverse action against Smith that would chill a person of ordinary firmness from continuing in that activity, and that the adverse action was motivated in part by Smith's exercise of his constitutionally protected right to freedom of speech."