A long time coming: $23.5M award to Black undercover police officer beaten by colleagues

On Monday, St. Louis Circuit Judge Joseph Whyte awarded nearly $23.5 million to former police officer Luther Hall, who was beaten by colleagues while working undercover during a protest in 2017.

The incident occurred during a time of great tension on the streets of St. Louis. That afternoon, former St. Louis police officer, Jason Stockley, was acquitted of the December 20, 2011, fatal shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith. Stockley left the department in 2013 and wasn't charged with first degree manslaughter until 2016 after then-Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce cited unspecified new evidence.

After the acquittal on September 17, 2017, police, who expected large groups of protesters, prepared a heavy response. Roughly 200 officers from the "Civil Disobedience Team" were dispatched to handle protesters. It was only the first of many protests that spanned the city and county that year.

Police clashed with protesters downtown, arresting more than 120 people. Hall, who is Black, and officer Louis Naes, who is white, were embedded undercover among the marchers. Both were arrested. Naes told investigators that while his arrest “was routine,” officers dressed in heavy armor, "beat the f**k out of (Hall)…like Rodney King.”

The Rev. Darryl Gray, then community liaison for the Ethical Society of Police-a police association which represents primarily Black officers-recalled how the organization immediately called on the department to investigate the assault.

“It didn’t matter that he was a police officer,” Gray said, “all they saw was his color.”

A year later, 2018, four St. Louis police officers were indicted on federal charges claiming that three of them beat an undercover colleague during protests and, according to federal prosecutors, all four then covered it up.Prosecutors alleged that the officers, Dustin Boone, Randy Hays, and Christopher Myers threw, kicked, and beat Hall with batons "while he was compliant and not posing a physical threat to anyone."

The indictment also claimed that several of the officers exchanged messages that "expressed disdain" for protesters and "excitement about using unjustified force against them and going undetected while doing so."

In one Sept. 15, 2017, text message, Myers wrote, "let's whoop some ass."Prosecutors also presented messages from Hays saying; "going rogue does feel good" and Boone replying: "it's gonna be a lot of fun beating the hell out of these (expletive) once the sun goes down and nobody can tell us apart!!!!"

The officers faced charges of depriving Hall of his constitutional rights and conspiracy to obstruct justice. Another officer, Bailey Colletta, was accused of lying to a federal grand jury investigating the incident.Not only did she deny encountering Hall the night of his arrest, but Colletta lied when she said he was "brought to the ground very gently."

Police sources initially said Hall only suffered a bloody lip during the arrest, but Hall’s injuries were much more extensive. The kick to his face damaged his jaw to the point where he could not eat and wound up losing about 20 pounds while in recovery. Hall testified that he also sustained an injury to his tailbone and had to have surgery to repair two herniated discs in his neck and one in his back.

After learning that Hall was an undercover officer, prosecutors maintained that the three male officers lied about the arrest, claiming Hall “resisted and was not compliant.” The indictment said the officers also tried to contact Hall to dissuade him from pursuing disciplinary or legal action.

Boone was eventually sentenced to 366 days in prison, Myers received a year's probation and Colletta was sentenced to three years' probation and two consecutive weekends in prison for lying to a grand jury about what she saw during the assault.

Hall sued three of his former colleagues Hays, Boone, and Myersfor their roles in the attack. By that time, two of his former officers, Hays and Colletta had pleaded guilty. Officer Steven Korte, who Hays testified kicked Hall in the face, was acquitted of the charges against him. 

Hall was awarded a $5 million settlement from the city. 

On Monday, Judge Whyte awarded Hall $10 million in punitive damages, $11 million for past and future physical and emotional pain and almost $2 million for lost wages. He additionally awarded Hall more than $213,000 for lost delayed retirement and insurance benefits and health insurance benefits, as well as about $366,000 for past and future medical expenses.

In response to the settlement, Lynette Petruska, Hall’s lawyer said: “Luther is grateful that Judge Whyte took his brutal assault by fellow officers and its life-changing consequences more seriously than the City of St. Louis and the St. Louis police department did.”

Rev. Gray was pleasantly surprised by Hall’s multi-million-dollar award.

“When you’re dealing with this ‘Blue Wall of Silence,’ the Police Bill of Rights (state legislation passed in 2021 that gives officers special legal protections, closes files to police misconduct and allows courts to block major cuts in police budgets) and Qualified Immunity (protects police from individual liability unless he/she violated a clearly established constitutional right), it is so difficult to hold police officers accountable,” Gray said, adding: “It is almost impossible because the bar is set so high.”

Police were accused of a long list of injustices employed during the 2017 protests. One of which, according to ArchCity Defenders-a legal advocacy group-was “a controversial, dangerous, and illegal tactic known as ‘kettling’” where police arrested anyone in the vicinity of the demonstrations regardless of whether they committed any crimes. Those arrested, according to ArchCity, “included members of the military who lived in the neighborhood, members of the media, and at least one unhoused individual.”

Last year, the city agreed to pay nearly seven dozen people who accused St. Louis police of violating their rights during the downtown protests in 2017, nearly $5 million.

Gray worries that police and city officials still haven’t learned from costly settlements related to aggressive actions and the violation of protesters rights. 

“Unfortunately, this happened to Luther (Hall) but it’s not uncommon,” Gray said. “That’s what we’ve been trying to say, hoping that police will acknowledge that the complaints and concerns we’ve raised over the years have been genuine. 

“Now that it’s been affirmed through the courts, it vindicates what the activist community has been crying out for all these years: accountability.”

Sylvester Brown Jr. is the Deaconess Foundation Community Advocacy Fellow.