An Atlanta woman has sued an off-duty police officer she alleges assaulted her during an April 2011 melee at a Buckhead IHOP that went viral.

Roberta Caban’s suit claims Atlanta police Officer Jose Vidal, moonlighting as a security guard at the now-defunct IHOP, provoked her and two friends, telling them to “shut up” before becoming physically violent. Punches were thrown by Vidal and the women — including one who was not with Caban’s group but intervened on their behalf.

That woman, Ashley Leavell, filed a lawsuit last month against Vidal and Southern Restaurant Management Inc., claiming the APD officer used excessive force and holding the company responsible for hiring him as a security guard.

Caban’s suit, filed Friday in Fulton County State Court, claims she has been unable to obtain employment since the incident even though obstruction charges against her were dismissed when the former flight attendant agreed to enter a pretrial diversion program. She seeks compensation for the “substantial lost income” she’s incurred in the two years since the fracas, naming Vidal and SRM Inc. as defendants.

“The damage has been done to her reputation,” said Scott Zahler, Caban’s attorney. “Employers google. There’s a lot of misinformation out there associated with this case, and in this job market, if you have any taint on you, you’re not going to get hired.”

According to Vidal’s arrest report, Cynthia Freeman, one of Caban’s friends, was “yelling at another booth. He wrote that he warned her not to talk so loud and that, if she continued, she’d be asked to leave. Eventually he did just that, but the women refused.

Freeman “started throwing punches at my body to stop me from arresting her,” the report said. At that point, Leavell walked over to the booth and told Vidal to leave Freeman alone, according to the officer.

“Ms. Leavell punched me in the left side of my face, I returned the punch and struck her in her face,” the report stated.

Vidal was cleared by the Atlanta Police Department’s office of professional standards, which concluded he used a reasonable amount of force, given the circumstances.

But Caban’s suit alleges Vidal was the aggressor.

“Vidal … entered the booth and began pushing and ramming Ms. Caban and Ms. Freeman into the interior wall next to the booth,” the suit states. “As he was doing so, Defendant Vidal’s fist was forcefully hitting Ms. Caban.”

In the videos recorded by IHOP customers, Vidal can be seen forcing the women against a wall inside the booth. Leavell touched Vidal, he slapped her and she jabbed back several times, the footage appears to show.

Caban alleges in her suit that Vidal grabbed her left arm and “dragged her out of the restaurant” before arresting her and the other women.

“There was no basis for an arrest of my client,” Zahler said. “She didn’t obstruct anything, and she didn’t do anything to deserve this kind of excessive force.”

Atlanta police officials have declined comment on the civil suits.

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