IBJNews

Two injured on motorcycle sue Indy over police crash

Back to TopCommentsE-mailPrint

Two people who were seriously injured when an allegedly intoxicated Indianapolis police officer collided with their stopped motorcycle are seeking unspecified damages from the officer, the police department and the city in at least the third civil suit over the case, including two in the past week.

Kurt Weekly and Mary Mills filed the lawsuit Tuesday in Marion County against former Officer David Bisard and the other defendants, claiming the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department did not adequately oversee Bisard.

"It was foreseeable and substantially certain to the Defendants the City of Indianapolis and IMPD that its failure to properly train, supervise and monitor IMPD Officer David Bisard would cause a collision resulting in serious injuries and/or death or would expose the public including Kurt Weekly to such risk," the lawsuit said.

After the Aug. 6, 2010, crash at an Indianapolis intersection, blood work showed Bisard had a blood-alcohol content of 0.19 — more than twice the legal limit for drivers — when he drove his squad car into two motorcycles stopped for a traffic light. A judge earlier this year threw out the blood test in the criminal case against Bisard because it wasn't performed according to state law.

The collision killed 30-year-old Eric Wells, and his family sued the city in December, claiming Bisard was negligent.

Weekly says he suffered a brain injury, incurred more than $500,000 in medical expenses and has lost wages as a result of the collision. Mills, who was riding on Weekly's motorcycle, also is seeking damages for medical bills and lost wages.

Weekly and Mills, who recently married, also claim they experienced emotion pain from witnessing "the gruesome death" of Wells, their friend and co-worker, and each other's suffering.

Indiana tort law caps the city's liability at $700,000 per claim.

Bisard's attorney, John Kautzman, said he had no immediate comment on the lawsuit. City attorney Samantha Karn said it does not comment on pending litigation.

A third lawsuit was filed last week by three formerly high-ranking Indianapolis police officers. They are suing the city for damages and lost wages after being demoted for how they handled the crash. Former Assistant Chief Darryl Pierce, reduced with the others last year to the rank of lieutenant, said the three were made scapegoats.

ADVERTISEMENT

  • protect and serve
    Shame on the city of Indianapolis for not doing what was RIGHT in the first place! ,Protecting an Officer who broke the law killing someone,injurying others! Its a no brainer they should have to pay! especialy if you keep persons like that on the payroll you should be LIABLE!
  • crash and scape goats
    I totally agree with Pierce.. Someone higher up than the ones demoted is hiding something maybe hiding alot!! So we need to support the ones demoted and they need to dig deeper like from Straub;Ballard and the mysterious man???

Post a comment to this story

COMMENTS POLICY
We reserve the right to remove any post that we feel is obscene, profane, vulgar, racist, sexually explicit, abusive, or hateful.
 
You are legally responsible for what you post and your anonymity is not guaranteed.
 
Posts that insult, defame, threaten, harass or abuse other readers or people mentioned in IBJ editorial content are also subject to removal. Please respect the privacy of individuals and refrain from posting personal information.
 
No solicitations, spamming or advertisements are allowed. Readers may post links to other informational websites that are relevant to the topic at hand, but please do not link to objectionable material.
 
We may remove messages that are unrelated to the topic, encourage illegal activity, use all capital letters or are unreadable.
 

Messages that are flagged by readers as objectionable will be reviewed and may or may not be removed. Please do not flag a post simply because you disagree with it.

Sponsored by
ADVERTISEMENT

facebook - twitter on Facebook & Twitter

Follow on TwitterFollow IBJ on Facebook:
Follow on TwitterFollow IBJ's Tweets on these topics:
 
Subscribe to IBJ
  1. First, the Athenaeum is going to have to get past the hurdle with the Lockerbie residents and the agreement that the parcel would be residential. Second, and in my opinion, this prime piece of property should include parking, PLUS, a black box theater(s), some market rate and affordable artist housing and a plan to renovate and reconfigure the second story theater. I would negotiate to add the DeHaan property surface parking lot into the development mix, place a one story surface parking garage on the DeHaan lot on the street level (for the Dehaan tenants use during the daytime) and add a second story to the garage that would become an addition to the current second story theater and then change the direction of the theater by moving the stage across the alley and on top of the DeHaan lot parking. You can add all the stage elements that are currently missing from the Athenaeum stage to make it more attractive for use by Ballet, Opera and traveling productions. Plus, the theater changes would probably help solve some of the soundproofing issues. Alas,it does not seem to be a part of the strategic plan to conduct a study to determine best use of the property. Seems like the current plan is a quick and easy move that ignores the property best use/potential and any strategic property planning for the effect on future generations.

  2. I recall that MSA's pilings are still in the ground and hard to remove. It’s not likely any proposal will include significant underground construction/parking because of this. Start adding 2 floors of retail, 8 floors of parking and 5-10 floors of possible hotel, and/or 10-20 floors of residential, and you are at 30 floors already with possible expansion of all the uses. But then again I could be wrong.

  3. Accoriding to their website there is no deadline to the Do Not Call list. What is this article referring to??

  4. On what planet are they entitled to this largesse from the stockholders? These people make multi-million dollar salaries: Pay for your own personal travel.

  5. It matters because they're already paid enormously fat salaries: Pay for your own personal travel. Being "taxed on it" isn't a valid excuse--so what? They're still being gifted a raft of luxury perks from somebody else's money on top of an enormous, lavish salary.

ADVERTISEMENT