COURT GIVES MUGGER $4 MILLION

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, April 6, 1993                   TAG: 9304060209
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: B2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: Newsday
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Short
COURT GIVES MUGGER $4 MILLION
Nine years after he was shot in the back by a Transit Authority cop and paralyzed from the mid-chest down while mugging an elderly man in a subway station, Bernard McCummings was told by the state's highest court that his injuries are worth $4.3 million.
The state Court of Appeals, affirming a jury decision and lower appellate court rulings, said Monday that McCummings was the victim of excessive police force.
In reaching its decision, the court ruled that McCummings' lawyers had proved that Transit Authority Police Officer Manuel Rodriguez, "in employing deadly physical force in an effort to [arrest McCummings], did not exercise that degree of care which would reasonably be required of a police officer under similar circumstances."
McCummings, now 32, was shot June 28, 1984, in a New York City subway station at 96th Street and Central Park West when Rodriguez and another plainclothes officer found him and two accomplices robbing and beating 71-year-old Jerome Sandusky.
McCummings pleaded guilty to the robbery and served 32 months in prison.
Rodriguez said that he shot McCummings and an alleged accomplice, Jacob Wise, when they lunged at him. But the court, noting that McCummings was shot in the back, did not believe him.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB