There is a picture in the lawsuit of her in the holding cell, says the cops flipped the hood of her sweatshirt over the damaged shoulder to cover up that it was deformed compared to the other shoulder, but it's still obvious there's no shoulder there.

The DA's office was considering whether to file charges against Karen Garner - they reviewed the arrest video & arrest report, and decided it was not worth prosecuting her for a so-called shoplifting attempt/struggling with the arresting officer. At that time the DAs weren't informed she was injured and denied medical care for more than 6 hours, or there might be a question of excessive force.

There was no question of police misconduct until nearly a year later when the federal lawsuit was filed, partly due to the arresting officers covering up that she was injured in the arrest. The new DA claims he's instructed his staff to be more sensitive to those sort of things, but it smacks of hindsight.

It's a real eye-opener for the residents of this small city that is not a suburb of a big metropolis - its in a farming area, free-standing. And the fact that it involves an elderly white woman shifts their paradigm of thinking that a minority or even a homeless person doesn't fit into the local society and probably did something to deserve that sort of treatment.

There's a lot of talk of 'more/better training' for the police, but it sounds like the DA's office and others in the county also need some training in order to realize what they might be looking at and ask more questions. They should be giving the arrestee the benefit of the doubt, not just assume the cops are acting appropriately.