According to a lawsuit, one of the New Jersey police officers involved in the fatal shooting of an unarmed man last year allegedly blackmailed a woman into having sex with him so he wouldn't arrest her for shoplifting.
The New York Daily News reports that a $25 million lawsuit has been filed against the city of Bridgeton, N.J. by Shakera Brown. The suit claims that Officer Braheme Days coerced her into having sex on multiple occasions after she was allegedly caught shoplifting from a Rite Aid in January 2014:
Days responded to a call for the theft at a Rite Aid on Jan. 20, 2014, and saw Brown. He told her she matched the description of the thief and she would be arrested unless they could "work something out," the lawsuit claims.
When Brown told the officer she had children and could not go to jail, the officer then replied, "I guess we're going to handle this in an adult manner," the lawsuit said.
According to the Daily News, Days held this over Brown's head through December 2014:
The officer had sex with the woman in his police car, a hotel and his home, the suit asserts. At one point he purportedly handed Brown a prepaid cellphone so he could arrange the meetings.
He once forced her to have unprotected sex and Brown arranged for an emergency meeting with her doctor to screen herself for any sexually transmitted diseases, the lawsuit claims.
On Dec. 30, Days was involved in the fatal shooting of 36-year-old Jerame Reid in Bridgeton. Dashboard camera footage shows both Days and Officer Roger Worley shooting Reid after he exited a vehicle following a heated verbal confrontation with the officers. Both Days and Worley have been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation.
According to the Daily Journal, the Bridgeton Police Department has declined comment on Brown's lawsuit.
[via New York Daily News and the Daily Journal]
