Sept. 12--WEST PALM BEACH -- A Boynton Beach woman is suing the federal government for $10 million claiming U.S. marshals violated her constitutional rights when they shot her while attempting to apprehend her boyfriend outside her house in August.
In the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court this week, Janira Calderin claims she was shot five times by agents who were trying to arrest her boyfriend, Samir Herrera, on a charge of attempted murder.
Calderin lost half of her index finger, the tips of two other fingers and sustained head and foot wounds when shooting erupted on Lake Monterey Circle in Boynton Beach, according to the lawsuit.
Agents should have known that Herrera, who served time for kidnapping and armed robbery and was wanted by Miami-Dade County police for attempted murder, was dangerous before they approached him and put Calderin in harms way, her attorney Ronald Guralnick wrote in the lawsuit. "She was merely an innocent passenger in the vehicle when the United States marshals opened fire," he wrote.
After a police chase, Herrera was arrested when his car crashed into a fence at Crosspointe Elementary School.
The U.S. Attorney's Office doesn't comment on pending litigation.
Copyright 2012 - The Palm Beach Post, Fla.
