After meeting in closed session with the Coldwater City Council Wednesday night, attorney Michael S. Bogren of the Plunkett Cooney law firm accepted service of the civil rights lawsuit by Tiffany McNeil against the city and Coldwater Police Department officers other than Lewis Eastmead on Thursday morning.

GRAND RAPIDS — After meeting in closed session with the Coldwater City Council Wednesday night, attorney Michael S. Bogren of the Plunkett Cooney law firm accepted service of the civil rights lawsuit by Tiffany McNeil against the city and Coldwater Police Department officers other than Lewis Eastmead on Thursday morning.

Eastmead had already been served.

The city now has 21 days to file an answer to the suit for all parties named.

The attorney met with the council in order to determine what strategy to take in defending the suit.

The suit alleges that excess force was used during McNeil’s disorderly conduct arrest on July 24. She was taken from the sally port at the Branch County Jail and hospitalized for a head injury and 17 stitches to her face.

The entire incident was recorded — both audio and video — on Branch County Jail monitoring systems.

That video has gone worldwide on the internet. On just one Facebook site, “Police the police,” the video received over 15 million views and was shared over 328,000 times as of noon on Thursday.

The lawsuit was filed with U.S. District Court for the Western district of Michigan and requests a jury trial for unspecified actual and punitive damages.

The case has been assigned to Federal District Judge Robert Jonker and will be heard in the Kalamazoo Region of the Western District of Michigan.