Jury Finds Mentone Police Innocent of Excessive Force
Posted
Jordan Fouts-
SOUTH BEND – A federal jury Friday decided that Mentone Police Dept. officers did not use excessive force when arresting a mixed martial arts fighter and his wife. Scott and Lisa Blevins filed a lawsuit against Jim Eads, Mentone town marshal and assistant fire chief, and deputy Terry Engstrad following the March 2009 arrest of Scott Blevins on charges of felony child molestation. The charges against Scott Blevins for child molestation were later dropped. Scott Blevins is a certified mixed martial artist. The jury reached its decision regarding the excessive force lawsuit after an hour of deliberation after hearing conflicting stories from the Blevins and the two officers, staff writer Madeline Buckley reports in the South Bend Tribune this morning. The Blevins testified during the jury trial that Engstrad and Eads pulled Scott Blevins out of a cabinet and threw his head into the refrigerator while searching for him in his Mentone mobile home. And during a controlled drug buy later, Eads tackled Scott Blevins, slammed his head into the glass of a nearby restaurant and kicked him in the stomach, the Mentone man further testified. Officers denied both allegations, and an emergency room doctor who examined Blevins testified that he found no injuries, Buckley reported. Scott Blevins was arrested on a warrant March 5, 2009, following a two-month investigation into allegations that he had molested a girl under the age of 14 on several different occasions, the Times-Union reported at the time. Police also found marijuana in the home. He was booked into the Kosciusko County Jail on a $200,000 bond. After Blevins was arrested, he offered police information on drug sales and participated in a controlled drug buy of marijuana that lead to one arrest. Officers then conducted a controlled buy in Warsaw that resulted in three further arrests. According to police testimony during the jury trial, Blevins was caught while trying to flee the scene of the Warsaw buy.
