Settled

Ironically enough, almost two years to the date after Pittsburgh Police thought it would be wise to beat me with batons to stop me from photographing their brutal arrest of a female cyclist, a settlement was offered and accepted.

I am parsing my words carefully here and even as I write this, my full time lawyer, Beth Libitard, is standing behind me, pretending to read every word. In fact, she thinks I should stop now. I should thank the good people who work at the city of Pittsburgh, some other independent legal group and an unnamed insurance company and drop it.

She is right. Confidential this and not a word of this that. I really need to make sure not to hurt any feelings. It is always about feelings.

The police officers, with their badges covered up in black riot gear, were never identified. They will never face any sort of charges. I never did get any sort of apology from the police, which in the end was all I ever really asked for. That and a request to fix my camera.

They say time heals all wounds and I am a big believer in that, I am. I recently sat in a conference room while a gaggle of over paid lawyers read over the medical reports from the hospital and doctors who treated me after the beating. I actually had forgot that my hip had to be x-rayed because of the severe bruising, that one hand had a baseball sized swollen area, that my right index finger would no longer bend because of the baton swings that had hit it trying to break my camera free and my ribs had been bruised and beaten. Contusions were recorded all over my body, from my face to my buttocks, and all of them, each and everyone of them, I forgot about. Sitting in the conference room with the lawyers in beautiful suits, I winced as they read the pages of reports.

Time heals. Of course, an apology would have been nice.