A Black motorist who was shot by Bloomfield, New Jersey, police as they attempted to arrest him for open felony warrants in 2020 is suing the town and the officers involved for using excessive force and conspiracy, claiming they lied when they reported that they fired at him because he tried to ram them with his car while fleeing.
Jeffrey Sutton’s insistence that he never tried to hit the officers with his 2015 Mercedes-Benz on Nov. 9, 2020, was vindicated the following year by police body cam, dash cam and witness cell phone video obtained and aired by News12 New Jersey.
Sutton, now 42, was wanted for armed robbery and aggravated assault when Bloomfield Police, responding to an automated license plate reader that had flagged his car as a “felony vehicle” cut him off on a downtown street and burst out of their unmarked SUV with their weapons drawn.
At first Sutton had no idea that the several men in plainclothes swarming around his car were cops, and “reversed away in retreat,” according to his lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in New Jersey (and obtained by Atlanta Black Star).
“I was scared sh—less, bro,” he told The Jersey Vindicator. “I was like, ‘Who the freak is this? And what’s going on? … I had never seen a takedown like this.”
Terrified, the mother of one of his six children jumped out of the car. Sutton, then recognizing one of the armed men as a cop, came to a stop and turned off his car engine to show officers that he intended to comply, intermittently holding up his hands, the lawsuit says.
Three officers kept their guns trained on Sutton and tried repeatedly to break the windows of his car while ordering him to get out. Capt. Gary Peters positioned himself directly in front of his vehicle, pointed his handgun at Sutton’s head, “spewed obscenities and repeatedly screamed that he would shoot him,” the complaint says.
Sutton pleaded for his life and assured the officers he did not have a weapon and begged them to put theirs away, he says.
Two officers, Sgt. Mark Moskal and Capt. Patsy Spatola, “seemed to recognize that Plaintiff was not a threat after some time,” and holstered their weapons, the lawsuit says. But Peters’ “escalating aggression” made Sutton believe the officer was about to use lethal force against him, and he tried to maneuver his vehicle around the officers to get away.
In so doing, while driving in reverse, he hit a civilian’s truck in traffic behind him, did a U-turn, and took off down the street. As he was backing up, Peters and Officer Raymond Diaz fired their service weapons at Sutton, striking him multiple times, and seriously injuring his arm.
Video footage from News12 later showed that the police were firing at Sutton as he was driving by them, that he wasn’t approaching them and that he never hit anyone.
But the incident and use of force reports that several officers filed in the days after the incident and which were used to obtain an arrest warrant for six offenses including felony aggravated assault against Sutton claimed that he had tried to run four of them down and that he had struck Spatola and Moskal with his vehicle, injuring their hands.
Most of the charges were dropped after the police and bystander video came to light.
Sutton pleaded guilty to a single count of third-degree eluding in a deal that wrapped up the case and other outstanding charges, his attorney Mark Ashley told the Vindicator.
While Sutton spent near 38 months in jail, none of the officers faced prosecution for either the shooting or the allegedly false reports, which the lawsuit asserts were created in a conspiracy among police officers to improperly shield themselves from liability for their illegal use of excessive force against him, which was done “without justification, adequate provocation or just cause.”
A grand jury declined to indict the officers in October 2021, the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office said, and the prosecutors who reviewed Sutton’s allegation of false reporting by police “found insufficient evidence of criminality.”
Peters was promoted to deputy chief of the police department in 2023.
In addition to allegations of excessive force, assault, and negligence in violation of federal and state law against the officers, the lawsuit filed in November 2022 also claims that racial animus was a driving force in the shooting of Sutton, and that the Bloomfield Police Department (BPD) has a widespread pattern, policy and custom of violating the constitutional rights of Blacks and African Americans.
The lawsuit cites a 2016 racial profiling report by Seton Hall Law School Center for Policy & Research that found BPD policing patterns were racially disproportionate and concluded that the department’s “target group” is African Americans and Latinos, collectively.
Sutton’s complaint also notes that “seven out of eight BPD officers with the most uses of force between 2012 and 2016 did so upon a Black person more than 45% of the time in a township where Blacks only account for approximately 16% of the population,” drawing on a NJ.com Force Report.
Then-Sgt. Nicholas Polidoro, who allegedly approved a report that falsely claimed Sutton had struck two officers with his vehicle despite the video evidence that belied that, was singled out as “an alarming example of exhibiting racial animus in policing” in the news report. In 15 uses of force over the course of five years, every one of Polidoro’s subjects was Black, the lawsuit says.
Polidoro was since promoted to captain and is now the patrol bureau commander.
Sutton suffers from permanent physical injuries to his left arm including nerve damage that impairs his ability to move his arm, grip objects and to continue his work as an HVAC technician, as well as from psychological injuries and emotional distress stemming from the incident, the complaint contends. He seeks a jury trial to determine compensatory and punitive damages and to cover his legal costs.
In their answers filed in 2023, the Township of Bloomfield, the police department and six individually named police officers deny all of the allegations of unlawful conduct in the complaint.
The officers deny that their use of force against Sutton was excessive or that they falsified any reports. They say they had probable cause to arrest him and that their actions were “objectively reasonable” under the circumstances due to his “egregious criminal conduct after the motor vehicle stop.”
They also claim immunity from liability because they acted in good faith and reasonably believed their conduct to be lawful.
Attorneys for the town and police department further argue that Sutton, who was “involved in a felony … used his vehicle as a deadly weapon” and that the officers shot him to prevent themselves from being struck by it. They also denied the BPD engages in racially biased policing, that its officers are “overly aggressive” or that “flagrant violations of civilians’ rights persist” in Bloomfield.
After three years of prison time, physical therapy, legal pleadings and depositions, and the death of one his attorneys (in August) — Michael Ashley is now solely handling the case that was filed by his late father Thomas R. Ashley’s law firm —Sutton told the Vindicator he’s hoping a legal win will help him to get his life back on track and force the police to take some accountability for their actions.
“I never did anything to law enforcement,” he said. “I cut the car off, and I said to myself, ‘I’m going to jail.’ But [Peters] wouldn’t allow it … He was saying he was going to blow my head off, and if I kept fidgeting, if I reach for the door handle, he’s going to shoot. I didn’t know what to do.”
Discovery in the case is scheduled to end in mid-December, and then an initial settlement conference between the parties likely will be scheduled.
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