Manassas Park wins Rack 'N Roll suit
Manassas Park's battle with David M. Ruttenberg is over.
A U.S. District judge has found that Manassas Park did not violate Ruttenberg's Fourth Amendment rights during a 2004 Alcoholic Beverage Control inspection at Rack 'N Roll, Ruttenberg's pool hall at 8488-A Centreville Road in Manassas Park.
Ruttenberg sued the city two years after the inspection, saying that 38 officers from the Prince William- Manassas- Manassas Park Narcotics Task Force pointed handguns at Ruttenberg and one of his bartenders and a shotgun at pool hall customers and acted in a threatening manner.
In an opinion filed Friday, Judge T.S. Ellis III, of the Eastern District of Virginia, said video from pool hall security cameras didn't corroborate the claims.
Even if they had, Ellis wrote, the actions wouldn't have been unreasonable in the establishment where under-cover police officers had made at least eight marijuana deals and one undercover cocaine buy in months preceding the inspection.
Manassas Park City Attorney Dean H. Crowhurst said police were called to the pool hall a number of times over seven months before the raid.
Ellis found that "patrons, employees and law enforcement officials alike behaved calmly."
Ellis wrote that although the inspection was an "inconvenience for all" it was "carefully planned, quickly executed and essentially unremarkable."
Crowhurst said defending against the "frivolous" lawsuit cost the city roughly $250,000.
"A good chunk of it was covered by our insurance company ... still that's a lot of money for a small city," Crowhurst said. "I feel -- and most of the leadership of the city feel -- that the city had been kind of dragged through the mud on this, and unfairly so."
Manassas Bureau Chief Keith Walker can be reached at 703-369-6751.
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