Family of mentally disabled woman sues Wal-Mart, cops

NOVI, Mich. — Wendy Kozma was wrapping up her workday with a client when she got a mind-numbing phone call from her mentally impaired daughter: "Mom, this man is trying to take me from Wal-Mart."

Kozma feared the worst: a kidnapping.

Within minutes, she would learn what was really happening. Her 25-year-old daughter, Jodi, who has the mental capacity of an 8-year-old, was being questioned for shoplifting at a Livonia, Mich., Wal-Mart. Jodi Kozma was suspected of stealing hair ties and hiding them in her waistband and purse during a shopping trip with her grandmother, records show.

Jodi Kozma wound up in handcuffs, muscled to the floor by Livonia police.

Wal-Mart and the Livonia police wound up in court.

Turns out that the 25-year-old had bought a 30-pack of hair ties and stickers that day and had a receipt as proof. The suspicious bulge in her waistband was her cellphone.

In a civil-rights lawsuit unfolding in U.S. District Court, Wendy and John Kozma of nearby Novi, Mich., are suing the retail giant and Livonia police, alleging that they used excessive force on their daughter and scarred her emotionally.

Jodi Kozma grew up learning to trust the cops, her mother said. Now, she's terrified of them.

"If she were ever lost or stranded, we always taught her to turn and look for police. All of that has been completely destroyed," Wendy Kozma said. "I know that this has traumatized her. I want it to go away."

What happened

In the nearly two years since Jodi Kozma was arrested at the Livonia Wal-Mart, her parents still are reeling. They want an apology from Wal-Mart and Livonia police, who dispatched four officers to the scene that day "in a SWAT-like approach, parking the cruisers on the sidewalk directly in front of the store doors," records show.

Among the lawsuit's claims: Family told store security and police repeatedly that Jodi was "special needs" but they failed to treat her accordingly and instead traumatized her when she didn't have the mental capacity to understand what was going on.

Jodi Kozma just wants an apology — and a bouquet of flowers. That's what apologetic people do in the movies, she told her parents.

The parents want an apology, too, along with unspecified financial damages and assurance that police and store security follow proper procedures when dealing with disabled people.

The Kozmas filed their lawsuit in May in Wayne County Circuit Court, but Wal-Mart requested June 9 that the case be moved to federal court. Initially, the Kozmas filed a citizen's complaint with the Livonia police department, alleging officers used excessive force on their daughter and were unprofessional. They filed it the same day of the incident: Aug. 3, 2012.

Livonia police declined to comment. But according to a letter they sent the Kozmas, they deny any wrongdoing.

"In order to make the situation safe for all parties involved, the decision was made to handcuff your daughter, who was initially compliant, but then began to struggle. Officers used the minimal amount of force necessary to gain control and handcuff her. There was no indication that your daughter was injured when she was detained," Livonia Police Lt. Francis Donnelly wrote in the Sept. 18, 2012, letter. "I have reviewed both video and audio recordings of the incident and find no evidence of unprofessional behavior or excessive force on the part of our officers. Based on my investigation, I have determined that your complaint against our officers is unfounded."

Wal-Mart, which declined to comment on specifics of the lawsuit, issued this statement: "First and foremost, a cornerstone at Wal-Mart is respect for an individual. We expect all of our customers to be treated with dignity and respect, regardless of the situation. Based on the information that we have (about the Kozma case), we believe our associates acted appropriately and followed protocol."

Wendy Kozma tells a different story.

Here, according to Wendy Kozma, a police incident report and surveillance video obtained by the Free Press, is what happened that day:

Jodi Kozma, who was born with a condition that deprived her brain of oxygen and left her mentally impaired, had gone on a shopping trip to Wal-Mart with her grandmother. After checking out, two plainclothes Wal-Mart security officers surrounded Jodi Kozma in the lobby and accused her of stealing merchandise.

Unbeknownst to Jodi Kozma, a surveillance camera operator, who said she had footage of Jodi picking up hair pieces and concealing them in her purse or in her waistband, was monitoring the woman in the store.

When store security stopped Jodi Kozma, she became afraid and upset. The grandmother informed the security team that Jodi Kozma is mentally challenged and would not intentionally steal.

She tried to show them the receipt for the hair ties her granddaughter had purchased, but the security team wouldn't listen to her. And they wouldn't let her calm her granddaughter down. Meanwhile Jodi Kozma had called her mom, who immediately headed for Wal-Mart.

By the time her mom arrived, police were there.

According to a police incident report, Jodi Kozma was screaming "at the top of her lungs, causing a scene." A sergeant asked her to put her hands behind her back because he could not confirm if a bulge in her waistband was a weapon, a cellphone or stolen merchandise.

Then came the handcuffs. Jodi Kozma pulled away and began screaming, reaching for her grandmother. She was placed against a wall.

Two officers "muscled Jody to the ground and handcuffed her behind her back," the report said. They took her to a private office and started questioning her.

She repeatedly denied stealing anything.

Within minutes, her mom showed up. She tried to enter the interrogation room, but police stopped her. After pleading and threatening a lawsuit, she got in. The image of her catatonic, handcuffed daughter broke her heart.

"I said, 'Jodi, it's OK. Mom's here,' " Wendy Kozma recalled through tears, noting her daughter assured her she was fine. "She said, 'That's OK. God is with me.' ... I believe that God was with her and kept her calm."

During questioning, an officer threatened to conduct a body search, but Wendy Kozma intervened and searched her daughter herself. She lifted her daughter's shirt, her pant legs and opened her waistband. She found nothing.

She emptied the contents of her daughter's purse. No stolen goods were inside.

Then police let Jody Kozma go.

A bigger problem?

Jodi Kozma left the store, tears streaming down her face. She has not been to a Wal-Mart since. And she gets frazzled when she sees Wal-Mart TV commercials, or a Wal-Mart truck on the highway.

"How did it get to that?" said a frustrated Wendy Kozma, who believes Wal-Mart and police escalated the situation by not letting her daughter calm down and handcuffing her.

Prominent plaintiff's lawyer Deborah Gordon, who is representing the Kozmas, agreed, saying Wal-Mart and police "over-reacted in a goonish way."

"We're not talking about a (stolen) gun or a plasma TV or cash. We're talking hair ties. And it turned out she didn't have anything," Gordon said. "Instead of everybody taking a deep breath and telling the grandmother, 'Would you mind sitting in a chair here and wait for her mom,' they've gotta do their ramped-up Rambo crap."

The case highlights an all-too-common problem with police authorities: a lack of procedures in place to deal with people with disabilities, Gordon said.

In another case, a 26-year-old man who suffered Down syndrome died Jan. 12, 2013, after police pinned him down on the ground until he suffocated. Robert "Ethan" Saylor of Frederick, Md., had watched the movie, Zero Dark Thirty with his caregiver and refused to leave the theater because he wanted to see it again.

Instead of allowing his caregiver, who had left the theater to get the car, to buy another ticket, a theater employee called three off-duty police officers who were working security at the shopping center. They restrained Saylor with three sets of handcuffs because of his large size and placed him on the ground when he resisted.

When Saylor began showing signs of respiratory distress, they removed the handcuffs, called for help and administered cardio-pulmonary resuscitation. But he later died at the hospital; a grand jury later refused to indict the officers.

"Everybody who has a child who is compromised relates totally to how out-of-control this can get," Gordon said. "They wouldn't let the mother in? Why? Are you people all insane?"

Meanwhile, Wendy Kozma wants assurance from police that this doesn't happen to anyone ever again.

"I want them to go a step further and say, 'We were wrong,'" she said.

Contributing: Debra Alfarone, WUSA-TV, Washington