Another “excessive force” lawsuit filed against Dubuque police

A pregnant woman and another mother are suing Dubuque police officers for pepper spraying them and their four children last summer and arresting two of the children, a 12-year-old boy and 14-year-old girl, without cause.

This is the fifth federal lawsuit filed by David O'Brien, a Cedar Rapids lawyer, against the City of Dubuque, claiming police officers used excessive force on four women and one man who didn't resist and were arrested without probable cause.

One of the lawsuits was just settled this week when the city agreed to pay $25,000 to Suzanne Potter, a Dubuque woman who said an officer arrested her when she was trying to persuade them to search a sex offender's home for her daughter. Potter said she was pushed head first into a pickup truck by an officer, inflicting a head wound that required stitches.

In this suit, Tina Dean and her three children, ages 12, 11 and 14, of East Dubuque, Ill., and Tracy McGonigle and her 13-year-old daughter, of Dubuque, claim officer Jay Murray, who also was named in the Potter suit, started randomly pepper spraying people during a neighborhood disturbance, including their children.

O'Brien said on Friday that police over radio traffic falsely claimed that an officer at the scene was being threatened with a baseball bat. According to O'Brien, police initially told news media that account of events; however, the next day, they said the information they had released wasn't an 'accurate description.”

Dubuque Police Lt. Scott Baxter said Friday the police department could not comment on pending legal matters.

When Dean asked Murray why her 12-year-old son, D.D., was being sprayed and arrested, Murray sprayed Dean, who was eight months pregnant, the lawsuit states.

Officer Brian Jobgen then arrived and he hit H.H., 13-year-old daughter of McGonigle, in the head with a baton without warning or cause, and Murray pepper sprayed her, the suit claims.

The suit also claims both mothers and the children needed emergency room medical treatment for injuries officers caused using 'excessive force.”

O'Brien said Dean's children, the 12-year-old boy and 14-year-old girl were arrested for interference with official acts without probable cause and the 12-year-old was also arrested for disorderly conduct, but no formal charges were ever filed. The two minors were booked into jail and then released.

'It's very unusual and something we will definitely be looking to get to the bottom of during litigation,” O'Brien said.