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Boston Woman Settles With MBTA In Police Brutality Case

BOSTON (AP) — The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has settled a 2015 civil rights lawsuit by a Boston woman who said two transit officers beat her when she tried to help a woman being shoved by an officer.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts says the MBTA will pay Mary Holmes an undisclosed amount under the settlement reached this week.

The police brutality suit said the two officers beat Holmes, who's black, after she tried to help an older black woman who was being shoved by one of the officers, a white female, at an MBTA station in 2014.

Mary Holmes
MBTA officers arrest Mary Holmes in 2014 (WBZ-TV)

Holmes' lawyers said they believed Holmes wouldn't have been treated that way if she were white.

Transit Police Chief Kenneth Green says the department has taken "significant steps" to improve monitoring and training.

(© Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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