City of Dubuque agrees to pay woman $25,000 in police injury settlement

A Dubuque woman received a $25,000 settlement from the City of Dubuque after she filed a federal lawsuit last year, claiming a police officer pushed her face first into a truck during arrest, cutting her head, after she tried to persuade him to search a sex offender's home for her missing 16-year-old daughter.

David O'Brien, lawyer for Suzanne Potter agreed to drop the lawsuit, filed last March, as part of the settlement.

'It was a fair and reasonable settlement,' O'Brien said Wednesday. 'This was settled fairly quickly, not too long after depositions were taken. They looked at it as a slip and fall accident, but we think we could have proven excessive force.'

O'Brien added the truck she was pushed against had a specially designed equipment box, which hangs over the side, and a jury could have said the officer may not have realized the harm it could cause.

Les Reddick, Dubuque lawyer for the city and officer Jay Murray, confirmed the settlement Thursday but added that their position is that no force was used.

'We settled the case as a slip and fall on the ice case' Reddick said. 'It should have been filed as a negligence case. They had to agree to dismiss the excessive force suit before we settled it.'

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Reddick said Murray slipped on ice as he was arresting Potter and this caused her to fall into the truck.

Potter, 58, in the lawsuit said her daughter went missing on Dec. 26, 2013 and she contacted police. Two days later, she thought her daughter was being held against her will by a convicted sex offender, Carl Schlie Sr.

Potter called police and they searched his apartment but her daughter wasn't found.

Then, on Dec. 30, 2013, her daughter got Schlie's phone and called Potter, telling her Schlie wouldn't let her leave and that he was sexually assaulting her, the lawsuit states. Police were called and they determined Schlie's phone was in or near his apartment.

Potter then went to Schlie's apartment and he let Potter's husband search his home but the daughter wasn't found. When Murray and other officers arrived, they threatened to arrest Potter as she was trying to convince them that her daughter must be in the building.

The suit contends Murray grabbed Potter, turned her around, locked her arms behind her back and threw her into a pickup truck.

O'Brien previously said Potter, who is 5 foot 3 and weighs 130 pounds, didn't resist arrest.

When she was pushed against the truck, her head hit the corner of the bed, where the tool box is positioned, and she was severely cut behind her ear, O'Brien said. He said the wound was deep and she required stitches.

During her arrest, a neighbor told police that Schlie had a separate storage closet in the hallway near his apartment that he kept padlocked, according to the lawsuit. The neighbor said she heard noises coming from the closet and thought the girl was inside. Murray told her the closet couldn't be searched and continued to arrest Potter.

O'Brien said the neighbor didn't give up, and on Jan. 2, 2014 she called Potter and the landlord in an effort to have the closet searched. The closet was searched with police present and the girl was found inside.

Potter was charged with second-degree burglary in relation to this but the charge was dismissed later.

Schlie was charged and pleaded guilty to harboring a runaway. He was sentenced to two years in jail.