GREENSBORO — The city paid out its second settlement — almost a year to the day apart — for a misconduct incident involving one of its former police officers.
On Thursday the city paid Dejuan Yourse $95,000 after a majority of Greensboro City Council voted Tuesday to approve a civil claim in his June 17 arrest last year. Yourse was sitting on the porch of his mother’s home at 2 Mistywood Court when officers Travis Cole and Charlotte Jackson responded to the home to investigate a possible burglary. Body-camera footage of Yourse’s arrest, which was released by the city, shows Cole punching Yourse in the face and throwing him to the ground.
The Guilford County district attorney’s office declined to press charges in August, and refused a request from the council the next month to re-examine the issue.
In October, Greensboro Police Chief Wayne Scott said Cole did not have the right to take Yourse’s cellphone. Scott could not be reached for comment late Friday.
Yourse told the person he was speaking with on his cell phone that the police were harassing him when Cole grabbed the phone and lunged at him. (Information has been changed to correct an error. 6:50 p.m. May 9, 2017. See correction below.)
Cole and Jackson both resigned from the police department.
The case was the second involving Cole.
He was involved in the high-profile arrests of brothers Devin and Rufus Scales in 2014 that gained a lot of media attention. They were arrested on charges of public intoxication and resisting arrest, among others.
Devin Scales recorded his brother being handcuffed without incident, raising questions about why he was charged with resisting arrest. After months of public pressure, the police dropped the charges.
The city reached a $50,000 joint settlement with them last May.
Yourse, now 37, and the Scales brothers were given written apologies from the city.
In both cases, residents protested over police conduct and in Yourse’s case, asked council to release body-camera footage of the arrest.
Viewing such video is more difficult after a new body-camera bill became effective Oct. 1. It no longer allows public access to police footage except by a judicial order and other limited circumstances.
Yourse, who could not be reached Friday at his mother’s home or through social media, had a recent run-in with police involving an alleged attack on his pregnant girlfriend.
In February, Yourse was charged with assault on a female, assault by strangulation and battery on an unborn child, according to Greensboro police.
The status of those charges was not immediately available Friday.