Logan family demands justice, brings lawsuit to federal court

SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Eric Logan’s family is still demanding justice but this time in federal court. The pre-trial hearing in the lawsuit brought by the family against the city of South Bend and St. Ryan O'Neill was Thursday morning.

The federal lawsuit comes after Sgt O’Neill shot and killed car-break in suspect Eric Logan this last June.

The Logan family filed the suit 10 days after the shooting and wants him to be held responsible for his actions and the city to be held accountable as well.

In the federal lawsuit, Sgt. O’Neill is accused of excessive deadly force and unequal treatment based on race in the June 16th shooting of Eric Logan. The lawsuit also accuses the city of municipal liability.

Today family met with their attorney, Brian Coffman, and the judge during a closed-door pretrial hearing at the federal courthouse in downtown South Bend.

They discussed deadlines like when to get subpoenas sent out and really to get this case started.

Coffman said since they first filed, everything’s been on hold.

“We’ve not been able to gather any documents,” Coffman said. “There’s still the special prosecutor completing his investigation, talking to witnesses. We have no report from yet either. So, our hope is now since we can finally start this case, we can start taking depositions, we can gather information for the family and try to find out really what happened that morning.”

The Logan family is seeking compensatory damages and attorneys’ fees as well as punitive damages against O’Neill who resigned from the force shortly after the shooting.

Coffman says the next hearing probably won’t happen until April of next year.

“Between now and then, there’s going to be a lot of work done. We’re going to take numerous depositions. We have subpoenas we’re going to send out to numerous entities including the mayor’s presidential campaign,” he said.