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Deadline extended on equal protection claim

(Jan. 19, 2017) The deadline to settle an alleged equal protection claim against the Town of Berlin has been pushed to the end of the month.
Luke Rommel, a Salisbury attorney representing complainant Ronshell Shockley, said talks are continuing with an attorney for the town’s insurance company. A Jan. 15 deadline had been set on whether to file a case in federal court.
Shockley contends she was forced to leave a public park – under threat of arrest – after an officer with the Berlin Police Department found her sitting on top of a picnic table at William Henry Park on June 30. Shockley is African-American and the officer was white.
“We had a fairly good discussion with the attorney handling the case on Friday,” Rommel said. “In light of that, we’ve agreed to wait until the end of the month to see if the case could be resolved.”
Rommel said both sides have presented settlement offers.
“There’s a lot of work to be done to compromise and get a number that works for both sides, but hopefully we can get there,” he said. “The alternative probably would be two or three years of federal litigation.”
Shockley had sought an apology from either the police department or the town, but Rommel said that would not be a part of any settlement deal.
“Initially, the client was just looking for an apology – that never happened,” he said. “An apology at this point – we would have no assurance that it was sincere. It is about a dollar amount, and it’s not a lot of money that we’re looking for by any means, but the litigation process at the end of the day is just about money.
“There’s no other thing the court can do or a jury can do. It’s not like they can discipline the officer or change the system – money is the only way to resolve the grievance.”
Rommel said his client believes the incident was racially motivated.
“I’ve never been the victim of any sort of racism, so I don’t really know exactly how that feels,” he said. “I know that it feels like racism to her. Whether the town admits that or does something less than admit that, she doesn’t want to be told she’s dry when she’s wet, so to speak.”
When he first heard the story, Rommel said, his first question was “and then what happened?”
“[I was] thinking that she would have been getting into the arrest or something much more damaging, and that never happened,” he said. “But the more I thought about it, the second time she told the story [he thought] ‘I kind of get this.’ I can see why she’s pretty upset about it.
“There’s a little bit of a scale-tipping component to it where she’s just kind of fed up with this stuff,” Rommel added. “And I kind of get that, even though I’d never experienced it first-hand.”
Town officials declined to comment.