PITTSBURGH (AP) - A man with the same name as a stabbing suspect says he was wrongly arrested, interrogated and held by police for about seven hours.
Richard Allen Miller, in a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday, contends he was forcibly arrested by police outside his mother’s Johnstown home in July in front of his girlfriend and young son.
The arrest happened after a stabbing victim in nearby East Taylor Township told police her assailant was Richard Miller, only to advise police they had the wrong man when they showed her the plaintiff’s picture after she was out of surgery, the lawsuit said.
Police from Johnstown, East Taylor Township and East Conemaugh Borough were involved in the arrest, and all three municipalities are being sued. None immediately returned calls seeking comment Tuesday.
The stabbing suspect turned out to be Richard Allen Miller, a homeless man from the Johnstown area. His public defender, Brett Smith, said he pleaded guilty Monday in Cambria County to a lesser degree of aggravated assault and other counts as part of a plea agreement under which he will seek entry into the state’s intermediate punishment program offering drug treatment in prison.
East Taylor police contend the stabbing occurred when the suspect approached the 63-year-old woman and offered to do odd jobs for money. When the woman said she had no money, the suspect began choking her and then used a knife to cut her throat, police said.
G. William Bills Jr., the attorney for the plaintiff, who was not charged with a crime, said in a statement emailed to media outlets with a copy of the lawsuit the incident was “another example of the Johnstown police department’s habit of running roughshod over the civil rights of private citizens.” He didn’t return repeated calls for comment seeking more details on the lawsuit and the plaintiff’s arrest.
The lawsuit contends unspecified police officers ran a records check for Richard Miller after the stabbing victim gave them that name.
The plaintiff’s identity was one of several that popped up so East Taylor officers and those from nearby Johnstown and East Conemaugh Borough went to his mother’s home, where he told them he’d been mowing the grass when the woman was attacked.
The officers drew their weapons, ordered the plaintiff to the ground and handcuffed him in front of his girlfriend, son and others who were on his mother’s front porch, telling them, “Get the (expletive) inside, or you’ll be arrested, too.”
The plaintiff was taken to the township police station and interrogated for hours before police were able to show the victim his picture. That’s when they learned the plaintiff wasn’t the attacker, the lawsuit contends.
The plaintiff wants unspecified damages for civil rights violations, false arrest, false imprisonment and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.