Maple Shade Death Lawsuit Against Cherry Police Can Go On

The suit stems from an incident on Nov. 22, 2007, when Joseph Pierce was involved in a fight outside the Cherry Hill Diner and was eventually arrested by officers who responded to the scene after 3 a.m. that morning.

His widow, Bobbie Lynn Pierce, claims her husband didn’t get medical attention until nearly an hour after the fight began and more than 30 minutes after police arrived on scene, despite being unresponsive after being brutally beaten and kicked in the head during the fight.

Though the township claimed qualified immunity and moved to dismiss the suit before it could even reach a jury, U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Rodriguez sided with Bobbie Lynn Pierce’s claim officers violated her husband’s Constitutional rights in allowing the suit to proceed.

“Mrs. Pierce has demonstrated sufficient questions of fact surrounding precisely what the officers knew or should have known with regard to Mr. Pierce’s need for medical care, when they knew or should have known this information, and, accordingly, whether their failure to provide such care when effectuating Mr. Pierce’s arrest was reasonable under the circumstances,” he wrote in his ruling this week.

With the discovery process already completed, a jury could be convened this fall to hear the case, and Anthony Marchetti Jr., Bobbie Lynn Pierce’s attorney, said preparations are well under way for that trial.

“My client’s going to have her day in court and know that she’s at least having a shot at justice for her husband,” he said. “She’s been fighting for 5 years to even get to a jury.”

Township officials, meanwhile, declined comment on the suit, citing pending litigation, and attorney David Ragonese, who’s representing the police department in the case, didn’t return a phone call seeking comment.

Officers responding to the scene believe Joseph Pierce to be drunk, rather than injured, according to the suit, though his wife attempted to explain he had been attacked following a road rage incident as they pulled into the diner’s parking lot.

But after arresting Joseph Pierce, who was carrying a folded pocketknife, on suspicion of being involved in a stabbing, those same officers discussed the possibility of a road rage incident, and one said people were “kicking the [expletive] out of this guy” in reference to Joseph Pierce, who had been in the back of a patrol car for roughly five minutes at that point, according to the judge’s ruling.

Those officers eventually took Joseph Pierce to Kennedy University Hospital on Chapel Avenue, according to the ruling, roughly 10 minutes after placing him in the patrol car and more than 20 minutes after two officers asked him if he was injured.

But the officers never called EMTs to the scene, the suit alleges, despite only being a mile from the hospital.

“From my standpoint, it’s an absolutely avoidable harm,” Marchetti said. “Once you put somebody in cuffs, you have an obligation to take care of them.”

Though police arrived with Joseph Pierce at the hospital less than an hour after the attack, the Maple Shade man was unable to answer questions and died of heart failure around 4:45 a.m.

“They made a snap decision, and it was wrong,” Marchetti said. “If this case makes these officers more careful, whether because someone died in their care or because they don’t like getting sued, either way, the folks who come into contact with them are better off.”