An Allegheny County man says a bad ID landed him in the Allegheny County Jail for nearly a week, and he is now taking two Pittsburgh cops to federal court over it.
In a civil complaint filed Thursday, Chiyeh Green accuses Officers Brian Shelton and Joseph Giles of having him wrongly arrested after a South Side assault last July, then leaving him behind bars for six days until prosecutors dropped the case. The lawsuit seeks damages for alleged violations of his constitutional rights and claims the arrest rested on a misidentification that officers failed to fix.
According to TribLIVE, Green was arrested on July 24, 2025, four days after the reported assault on July 20. He remained jailed until a judge dismissed the charges at a bond hearing.
The complaint, as described by TribLIVE, says police relied on a Facebook profile photo provided by the victim, and that a detective told Shelton that Giles had identified the male attacker. The suit counters that surveillance footage from the scene “clearly depicts a different individual who does not resemble Green.”
The filing also asserts that Green was on probation at the time and wearing an electronic ankle monitor that recorded him at home during the assault. According to the lawsuit, that alibi detail never made it into Shelton’s affidavit.
Legal Claims And Precedent
Green’s lawsuit brings a mix of federal and state claims, including malicious prosecution, false arrest, false imprisonment, equal-protection violations, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
On the federal side, the complaint invokes 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a statute that allows people to sue state and local officials who are alleged to have violated constitutional rights, as outlined by the Legal Information Institute. Similar lawsuits in western Pennsylvania have zeroed in on claims that investigators sat on or downplayed alibi evidence such as GPS ankle-monitor data, a pattern discussed in a 2025 Commonwealth Court opinion summarized by Justia.
What’s Next
The case now waits for its first tests in court. If the complaint survives any early motions to dismiss, it would move into discovery, the fact-finding phase where plaintiffs in police-misconduct cases typically seek internal reports, witness statements, and any available surveillance or body-camera footage.
A Pittsburgh Police spokeswoman told reporters the bureau does not comment on pending litigation. Green’s attorney did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
