CLEVELAND, Ohio - A Cleveland police officer punched a 53-year-old disabled veteran twice in the face and continued to beat him in front of his wife and daughter outside a Cleveland Indians game two days after the man's birthday, according to a lawsuit.

Narlin Shadd sued officer Alvin White over a September 2005 traffic stop that ended with Shadd, a special education teacher and high school soccer coach, bleeding from the mouth and spending three days locked in a Cleveland jail cell.

After the Friday night game, Shadd fetched his white Ford Escape while his wife and adult daughter waited outside the ballpark.

Shadd inched his Escape up to the intersection of Carnegie Avenue and Ontario Street, where White stood directing traffic.

Shadd mistook White's traffic signals and drove his Escape toward the officer. White threw his hands up in the air, and Shadd stopped his car several feet from White.

White walked up to Shadd's window and asked why he didn't stop right away. When Shadd said he thought White was waving him through, White reached into the car and pressed his flashlight up against Shadd's lips, as though he were hushing him.

Shadd pushed the flashlight away from his face, and called White a jerk.

White replied with a punch in the mouth, splattering blood across the Ford's white interior.

"Say it again," White said. He struck Shadd in the mouth again. "Say it again."

White reached into Shadd's car, turned the ignition off, opened the door and tried to yank Shadd out of the car, but his seat belt was still on.

Once his seat belt was off, White continued to strike Shadd, as his wife and daugher stood across the intersection. He kicked Shadd's legs out from under him, bruising his calf and sending him to the ground.

In the police report, White said Shadd bumped him in the back with his car, appeared drunk, cursed at him and tried to fight his arrest by "flailing his arms" and wrestling with White.

But in sworn testimony, White admitted he gets bumped by vehicles all the time, and said Shadd's impact did not leave a mark. And despite his suspicion that Shadd was drunk, neither he nor a supervisor gave Shadd a field-sobriety test.

And although they were across the street during the incident, investigators didn't take any statements from Shadd's family.

Shadd spent three days in city jail. City prosecutors charged him with failure to comply, although those charges were dropped. A Cuyahoga County grand jury ruled there was not enough evidence to indict Shadd for resisting arrest, assault on a police officer and failure to comply charges on Nov. 23, 2005, more than two months after the incident.

Shadd sued White and refused to settle with the city, demanding his day in court. A federal jury sided with Shadd, awarding him $50,000.