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Hualapai man seeks $1.5M in police brutality case

HUALAPAI INDIAN RESERVATION — A Native American man claims officers beat, gagged and put his face close to the muffler of a running police car after arresting him for a potential traffic violation, according to a recent lawsuit.

The suit stems from an incident that occurred on May 21, 2006, in which Gregory Russell was driving on the reservation in northwest Arizona. Hualapai Nation Police Officer Francis Bradley Jr. allegedly pulled him over for driving recklessly about two hours earlier, according to the complaint.

Soon the officer’s father and Hualapai Nation Police Chief, Francis Bradley Sr., arrived in street clothes. Together, the Bradleys arrested Russell and his fiancée, Natalya Marshall, who was a passenger in Russell’s vehicle. They put them in the back of the squad car with a third man, Delvin Jones, who was already cuffed and in the back of the car at the time of the arrests.

When they returned to the police station, the detainees waited 30 minutes before a third officer, Brian Miller, joined the group. Then Chief Bradley allegedly pulled Russell out of the car and took him behind a storage shed. His son turned up the volume on the squad car’s police radio, then joined the other two officers with Russell behind the shed.

That’s when the three men allegedly kicked, punched and slammed a shackled Russell into the storage shed repeatedly. Afterward, Russell was placed back in the car and transported 120 miles to the Coconino County Jail by Officer Miller, the complaint states.

But during the drive, Russell told Miller he was having trouble breathing and possibly suffering an asthma attack. So Miller allegedly drove back to the Hualapai police station and ordered EMTs to check Russell out.

When he was cleared and the group was back on the road, Miller allegedly pulled the squad car over, took Russell out, pulled Russell’s T-shirt over his head and wrapped packaging tape around his head several times, the complaint states. Then he put Russell back in the car.

Jones, another detainee in the squad car, was able to tear off some of the tape and pull the shirt down so that Russell could breathe more easily. Miller allegedly pulled the car over again and left it running. The complaint states he took Russell out of the back seat and pressed his face up close to the car’s exhaust pipe for several minutes.

Eventually, the trio was taken to the Coconino County Jail in Flagstaff, where detention staff noticed Russell’s injuries. His face, head, nose, left hand, eye and an ear were swollen, and he was ordered to shower. Then he was whisked away to a jail in Gallup, N.M., the next day.

Upon his release, the complaint states, Russell was taken to Kingman Regional Medical Center for treatment. As a result of the beatings, he had lost his hearing in both ears and now wears hearing aids.

Russell filed a $3.7 million claim against the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the U.S. Department of the Interior in November 2006. When the department denied the claim without comment last March, Russell filed a lawsuit in federal court in Tucson.

Flagstaff lawyer Lee Phillips is representing Russell and asking a federal judge for a $1.5 million judgment.