The City Council of Jersey City is scheduled to approve a $25,000 settlement on Wednesday night for a man who claimed officers attacked him and conjured up false statements on police reports.
Jeremy Rennick filed a six-count lawsuit last year against the Jersey City, the police department and four officers. He was arrested March 19, 2016 and accused of illegal acts outside the Salem Lafayette housing complex. He claimed his arrest violated his civil rights.
Jersey City police officials alleged that Rennick punched one officer and dragged the second one with his car. The court charged him with aggravated assault on an officer, eluding police and resisting arrest.
Court documents state that the surveillance footage shows the cops’ accounts of the story to be false. The video reveals Officers Humberto Balbosa and Kevin Geib attacking Rennick and starting a “violent, unprovoked” charge on him after he removed himself from the car, according to the lawsuit.
Charges against Rennick were dropped in October 2016 according to a spokesman for the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office, but the victim had already served six months in jail.
Officers Sgt. Thomas Broderick and Chris Koszyk were named in court by Rennick as the two other attackers. His attorneys and a city spokeswoman declined to give a comment on the upcoming settlement.