$750,000 Settlement for Mother Whose Son Died After a Violent Arrest

Attorney Mark W. Tanner secured a $750,000 settlement on behalf of the mother of a 20-year-old man who died after a violent arrest by two Camden, New Jersey, police officers outside a concert venue.

The client’s son was in the parking lot of Camden’s Tweeter Center waiting to attend an evening concert with several of his friends when the police violently arrested him after they received a report that he had hit a woman who he did not know in the chest.

The son, who insisted that he did nothing wrong, was repeatedly struck in the head by the officers with police batons, taken to the ground during the course of the arrest, and forcibly put into the back of a police van, according to witnesses at the scene. He was taken to the hospital where a security guard and other witnesses also observed police using excessive force, including pepper-spraying him.

As a result of multiple traumatic injuries, the son died five days after his arrest.

He had previously served in the U.S. Navy and left the military to take care of his mother who had suffered serious injuries in an accident. The settlement will help ensure that his mother receives the support and assistance that she otherwise would have received from her son.