Indianapolis Pays $150,000 to Brandon Johnson, a Teen Beaten by IMPD During His Brother's Arrest

On a night in May 2010, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police officers came to arrest Brandon Johnson's younger brother on a breaking and entering complaint. Johnson, who was 15 and biracial, was nearby when the scene turned into a confrontation. By the time it ended, the teenager's nose was broken, several of his teeth were chipped, and his face was bruised and bloodied.

Johnson said four white officers beat him while he was being handcuffed. The officers told a different story. They claimed he had tried to stir up the crowd that gathered and that he resisted when they moved to cuff him. Photographs of his battered face spread quickly. A local clergy member said one of the officers had called Johnson, who is half Black and half white, a "mutt," an allegation police said they could not verify. The case drew the Rev. Al Sharpton to Indianapolis and became a flashpoint over how the department treated young residents.

The department's own internal affairs review concluded that Officer Jerry Piland should be fired over the encounter. A civilian merit board later cleared him. The criminal track stalled as well. In 2011 the U.S. Department of Justice announced it would not bring federal civil rights charges, saying it could not prove the officers had willfully beaten Johnson, and the Marion County Prosecutor's Office declined to file charges of its own.

With every criminal avenue closed, Johnson and his mother, Shantay Chandler, took the matter to federal court. Stephen Wagner of Wagner Reese represented the family in a civil rights lawsuit against the city. The argument was direct: officers had used excessive force on a teenager who posed no real threat, and the documented injuries to his face did not square with the account of a suspect who was simply resisting arrest. Wagner pressed the case even though federal investigators had already passed on charges, a result the city could lean on.

The city agreed to settle on May 3, 2013, roughly three years after the beating. Indianapolis paid $150,000 to resolve Johnson's claims. Wagner called the settlement "a fair outcome for all parties," the Indianapolis Star reported. Because the case ended in a negotiated settlement rather than a verdict, there was no judgment to appeal and no later reduction of the amount.