A St. Amant woman was put on probation for three months Wednesday after pleading no contest in March to interfering with a Baton Rouge police officer who was captured on video last fall pulling the woman from a ditch by her hair in the wake of a motorcycle accident on Nicholson Drive.
Melinda Morris’ lawsuit against the city-parish, Police Department and Sgt. Robert Schilling is pending in federal court.
Her no-contest plea in City Court has the effect of a guilty plea, but cannot be used as an admission of guilt in her civil-rights suit.
Assistant Attorney General Kurt Wall said City Court Judge Kelli Terrell Temple gave Morris a suspended 10-day prison sentence and put her on bench probation for three months.
Schilling was suspended in December for 15 days for violating department policies in the Sept. 10 incident.
Morris’ lawsuit said she was driving a motor scooter and her husband was driving a motorcycle north on Nicholson near Lee Drive when her husband collided with a vehicle that pulled into their path.
Her son, who was not involved in the collision, tried to go to his father, who lay unconscious on the pavement, but Schilling barred her son from going to his father, the lawsuit said.
When she attempted to intervene, the officer shoved her into the ditch, then pulled her out by the hair, Morris claims in her lawsuit.
Police spokesman Cpl. L’Jean McKneely has said video from a patrol car dashboard camera shows Morris and Schilling “engaged in a physical encounter prior to the hair-pulling incident.’’
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