Valley woman sues over injuries from crash caused by fleeing vehicle

Labria Henderson of Belle Vernon has filed a lawsuit against the City of Pittsburgh, a detective and two other people.

By TAWNYA PANIZZI
TribLive

A Belle Vernon woman has sued the City of Pittsburgh and one of its detectives, along with two others, for injuries she sustained in a crash her lawyers said resulted from a high-speed chase that ended in Wilkinsburg.

John Abbondanza is the officer named in the suit in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court.

Labria Henderson, the victim, contends her Kia Soul was hit at 80 mph by a Dodge Durango evading city police on Nov. 20. The pursuit happened along East Swissvale Avenue toward Penn Avenue.

“She hit her face off the steering wheel, knocked several teeth out and had internal injuries,” Henderson’s attorney, Anthony Giannetti, told TribLive Thursday. “She was hospitalized for five days.”

Also named as defendants are the driver, Dior Richardson, and Ashley Burke of Penn Hills, identified as the person to whom the Durango belonged.

Richardson, 38, is in the Allegheny County Jail awaiting a preliminary hearing on dozens of charges related to the crash, which left nine people injured.

Giannetti originally filed the lawsuit on March 9 against Richardson and Burke. An amended complaint filed Wednesday added Abbondanza and the City of Pittsburgh as defendants.

According to the lawsuit, Abbondanza and a federal agent on patrol with him initiated a traffic stop for not signaling properly and having an illegal window tint on the Durango.

Police followed the car through Pittsburgh’s East Hills neighborhood and pulled it over around 9 p.m. on East Swissvale Avenue in Wilkinsburg, according to a criminal complaint.

Richardson stopped, briefly spoke with police and then suddenly took off, said the complaint by Abbondanza.

A subsequent chase at high speed ended with the Durango running a red light and colliding with Henderson’s car, according to the lawsuit.

Police, however, said at the time the pursuit was called off.

That was corroborated by Pittsburgh Councilman Khari Mosley, D-Point Breeze, who posted at the time on Facebook that he was at the crash scene and said police followed city policy by not engaging in a high-speed chase.

In the complaint, Abbondanza wrote that once Richardson drove away from the traffic stop, he “proceeded behind Richardson with emergency lights still activated for a brief period to make it known we were attempting to pull him over.”

Richardson drove into oncoming traffic, according to the complaint.

“Once it was apparent that Richardson had no intentions of stopping, I deactivated our emergency lights and reduced our speed,” Abbondanza wrote.

At that point, the complaint said, Richardson crashed, flipping the Durango onto the driver’s side. Abbondanza said Richardson was arrested at gunpoint. Police recovered two guns from the vehicle, the complaint said.

The suit seeks more than $50,000 for damages.

Emily Bourne, a police spokes- woman, said the department cannot comment on pending litigation.

Giannetti said it was negligence to turn a window tint violation “into an 80-mile-an-hour chase through dense city streets where people get injured.

“The city has a policy that you can’t chase for window-tint violations and the policy was not followed,” he said.

The suit contends that Abbondanza continued the high-speed pursuit without properly using emergency warning devices and without taking reasonable steps to warn motorists.

It created a high risk to other motorists, Giannetti said.

According to the court complaint, Richardson collided with at least five vehicles, causing at least nine people to be injured.

Richardson is facing 32 charges, including multiple felony aggravated assault counts.

A preliminary hearing, which has been postponed numerous times, is scheduled for April 2, according to online court records.