Strange News-Diabetic man mistaken for drunken driver and beaten

Strange News-Diabetic man mistaken for drunken driver and beaten

Michigan - A diabetic Detroit man was mistaken for a drunken driver by Allen Park and Dearborn police, and brutally beaten to the point that he had to have part of his brain surgically removed, the man’s wife and their attorney allege. Ernest Griglen, 59, has been comatose and on a ventilator since the June 15 incident, said attorney Arnold Reed of Farmington Hills.
Reed filed a lawsuit in federal court today against the Allen Park and Dearborn police departments and five officers on behalf of Griglen and his wife, Pamela Griglen. They’re seeking $20 million in damages.
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According to the complaint, Griglen was driving south on the Southfield Freeway when he suffered a hypoglycemic episode. The complaint says Griglen exited his vehicle in an effort to summon the Allen Park officer. Then he was pulled over by an Allen Park Police officer. Dearborn officers also arrived on the scene to assist, according to the court document.
The complaint alleges that police came in contact with Griglen’s insulin pump in Griglen’s stomach and diabetes equipment in his vehicle, but still threw him headfirst into the ground.

“A reasonably competent police officer properly trained in the use of force would not have beat, assaulted and battered” Griglen, the complaint says.

But police reports from Allen Park and Dearborn released Monday to the Free Press under a Freedom of Information Act request tell a different tale. In her account, Allen Park Officer Tracie Brown said she had to wrestle Griglen to the ground after a five-mile car chase and he became combative.

Brown wrote in her report that she noticed Griglen stopped his car at a green light in the middle of Southfield Road just south of Pinecrest. When she approached him, he yelled something about getting into a verbal argument with his wife. But when she told him to pull over to the side of the road so he wouldn’t cause an accident, he drove off, she wrote.

Brown said she called for back-up and turned on her lights and sirens when Griglen continued northbound on Southfield Road. When he finally pulled over just south of the Ford Road exit, Griglen put his hands on the hood and wouldn’t answer Brown when she asked him why he wouldn’t stop, she wrote. And when she told him to put his hands behind his back to be handcuffed and arrested for fleeing and eluding, he locked his arms then started to run when Dearborn Police back-up arrived, she said.

Officer Brown reported that she grabbed the back of Griglen’s shirt to stop him. Brown and two Dearborn officers then wrestled him to the ground, she reported.

In a report filed by Dearborn Police officers, they claimed they had to spray Griglen with pepper spray to force him to comply.

Once Griglen was handcuffed and picked off the ground, Officer Brown reported that she noticed the insulin pump going into the side of Griglen’s body, a bloody nose and a bump on his forehead where he hit the cement after being wrestled to the ground.

Griglen started to complain about police stopping him, speaking in slurred words, the reports states. That prompted a Breathalyzer field test that found no alcohol. Griglen told the police he wanted medical attention because he wasn’t feeling well, Officer Brown reported.

Police took Griglen to the hospital. Though the report does not state which hospital, Allen Park Police confirm it was Oakwood Dearborn.

At a news conference today, Pamela Griglen said she and her husband had gone to see “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” on June 15. They had popcorn, candy and soda as they watched the flick and then he dropped her off at Fairlane Mall in Dearborn. She said she didn’t know where Ernest Griglen was driving to next, but soon she found herself at Oakwood Hospital in Dearborn, where he was taken with head injuries.

“He said they beat him,” Pamela Griglen said, referring to Allen Park and Dearborn police officers. “He complained about his head.”

Since having brain surgery, Ernest Griglen has remained unconscious.

Allen Park Police Chief Dean Tamsen said today that city legal counsel advised him not to comment on the allegations.

“It’s a sad event for everybody involved,” Tamsen said this afternoon before the press conference.

Dearborn city spokeswoman Mary Laundroche, director of the Department of Public Information, declined to comment on officers’ actions.

“On the behalf of the city, we want to express concern for Mr. Griglen and his loved ones as they deal with his serious medical condition,” Laundroche said before the press conference. She also said the city had not received a copy of the lawsuit by this afternoon.

“It would be irresponsible to respond to a press conference held for dramatic purposes,” she added.





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