Rough ride (police brutality)

[1][2][3] Rough rides have been implicated in a number of injuries sustained in police custody, and commentators have speculated that the practice contributed to the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Maryland, in April 2015.

[1][2][4] Throughout the U.S., police have been accused of using aggressive driving tactics to "rough suspects up", resulting in numerous injuries, and millions of dollars of damages awarded to victims and their families.

[5][4] Baltimore lawyer Phil Federico described the practice as "definitely intentional", saying "they're unbelted, the inside of these wagons are not padded, they can't protect themselves, and they get thrown from one side to the other, usually landing on their head, and fracturing their neck.

Apparently uninjured at the time of his arrest, Johnson emerged from the police van paralyzed with a broken neck, and died two weeks later from pneumonia resulting from his injuries.

His family sued the Baltimore police and were awarded $7.4 million, which was reduced to $219,000 under a cap imposed by Maryland state law.

[1][4] In 2012, Christine Abbott, a 27-year-old assistant librarian at Johns Hopkins University, was arrested at a party she was hosting at her home in Baltimore's Hampden neighborhood.

[1] He was treated at the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center of the University of Maryland Hospital, where his spinal cord was found to be 80% severed, an injury consistent with a serious car accident.

In a 1991 class-action lawsuit filed by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, it was alleged that a deputy drove recklessly while Martinez, a minor, was handcuffed in the back seat of a patrol car, causing his head to strike the partition separating the front and back seats, and that Martinez was further beaten, choked, and kicked on arriving at the police station.

[14] Following a traffic stop on October 19, 1997, a Los Angeles Police Department disciplinary panel concluded that officer Ray Logan had carried out a "screen test", among other abuses.

[5] On September 29, 1996, Bernadette Moore, age 34, sustained injuries to her shoulder and back after a police ride in which she reported that the driver was "swerving and slamming on the brakes".

[5] On April 15, 1998, Robert Schwartz Sr., age 44, broke a vertebra in his neck during what he described as a wild police wagon ride.

During a 20-minute ride including quick stops and sharp turns, he repeatedly slammed his head into the walls, ultimately breaking three vertebrae in his neck.

[18] In November 2022, five members of the New Haven Police Department were charged with second-degree reckless endangerment and cruelty, after neglecting the injuries of a black suspect injured in their custody.

In the June 2022 incident, the driver of a police van braked hard, allegedly to avoid a collision, causing Randy Cox, 36, to hit the metal partition headfirst, resulting in his paralysis.