Two win wrongful arrest suit

Ontario men get $350,000 each over 2003 incident with off-duty Royal Oak officers

Paul Egan / The Detroit News

Detroit -- A federal judge has ordered the city of Royal Oak and its insurer to pay $700,000 to two Ontario men who alleged they were wrongly arrested for assault and jailed for more than a week after attending a concert at the DTE Energy Music Theatre in 2003.

U.S. District Judge Sean F. Cox issued consent judgments Wednesday awarding $350,000 each to Timothy McGuire and James Ryan.

The two men sued the city and two off-duty Royal Oak Police officers in 2005, alleging the officers wrongly identified them as assailants in a vicious parking lot assault following an Alabama concert. Two other men later pleaded guilty to the crime. The officers, Sgts. Douglas Warner and Barry Gale, were attending the concert with friends and family when they witnessed the assault and rushed to the aid of the victim. FULL STORY