ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, October 26, 1996 TAG: 9610280030
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
A Roanoke woman is suing a security company that guards her Northwest Roanoke apartment complex, claiming that officers used excessive force in arresting her on charges of trespassing outside her own home.
Tonia L. Cooper, a 28-year-old resident of Caru Apartments on Bennett Drive, made the allegations against Security Patrol in a $100,000 lawsuit filed this week in Roanoke Circuit Court.
The lawsuit accuses unidentified employees of Security Patrol of enforcing a 10 p.m. curfew at the apartment complex, "thereby making [Cooper] a prisoner in her own home."
When Cooper and other residents questioned the armed security guards about "this illegal restriction of their liberty" on the night of Aug. 24, the suit states, they were ordered into their apartments.
Later that night, one of the security guards discussed a plan to punish Cooper for questioning his authority, the suit states. "During this meeting, [another] guard expressed serious reservations and even warned the other two armed security guards that they were likely to be sued if they carried out their plan," the suit alleges.
A short time later, Cooper was arrested as she was leaving her apartment. She was charged with trespassing and violating the curfew. During the arrest, the guards struck her in the face and wrestled her to the ground, according to the suit.
Roanoke has a curfew, but the ordinance applies only to juveniles. Wallace A. Scott, owner of Security Patrol, said the owners of Caru, a privately owned, federally subsidized apartment complex, have requested that a curfew outlined in resident's leases be enforced.
But Henry Woodward, Cooper's attorney and director of the Legal Aid Society of Roanoke Valley, questioned whether the officers had the authority to file charges against a legal resident of the complex.
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