State Police Ordered To Pay Woman $15k For Marathon Crash
WOBURN (CBS) - A Middlesex County jury blames the State Police and the actions of Sgt. Dennis Bertulli for injuring Norma Shulman when Bertulli's state police motorcycle knocked her to the ground while she was watched the Boston Marathon in Natick back in 2007.
WBZ's videotape that captured the accident was the focus of this civil suit along with the state police investigation that followed.
Shulman said, "It was my duty to bring this issue forward in this forum because I had to speak up."
WBZ-TV's Kathy Curran reports.
The I-Team called into question a state police report by Lt. William Cederquist, which blamed Shulman for the accident. A diagram depicted her stepping into the path of the oncoming motorcycle but take a look at the tape.
In the end, the jury said Cederquist did nothing wrong. The jury awarded Norma Shulman $15,500 but she says this case wasn't about the money. She says it was about exposing a possible abuse of power which the jury didn't find.
"It's just unfortunate that it wasn't what we were hoping for in terms of the recognition of the abuse but we did at least get the chance to air our issue," said Shulman.
Attorney Timothy Burke, who represented Lt. Cederquist said, "I think everybody agreed it was an accident, an accident that could've been prevented. Certainly the real issue was whether or not the state police conducted an inappropriate investigation and the jury verdict demonstrated it was unbiased."
State police released this statement saying they are pleased that after considering the plaintiff's claims of a civil rights violation by Lt. Cederquist and of battery by Mr. Bertulli, the jury then promptly rejected both allegations. We respect the jury's decision but disagree with it's finding that the department was negligent.
The jury did find Norma Shulman negligent also in this case but said her negligence was not a "significant contributing" cause of her injuries.
