BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Katrina Godbey says a federal jury sided with three Bethlehem police officers in her excessive-force lawsuit over how they entered her home in March 2024, when she says officers pushed through her door and knocked her into a staircase.
The trial ran Oct. 13 and 14, and a verdict and judgment were entered Oct. 16, according to CourtListener’s copy of the court docket. The listing does not state the result. Godbey wrote on Facebook that the jury found for the officers, and she is looking for a lawyer to appeal. Her doorbell video of the March 1, 2024, entry is below.
The case went to trial after a federal judge ruled in August that a jury could find for her. In an Aug. 7 opinion, U.S. District Judge John M. Gallagher refused to shield the officers under qualified immunity, a rule that protects officers unless they broke clearly established law. He wrote that, at that stage, they had not shown an emergency that justified entering without a warrant.
She sued Officer Duncan Cahalan and the City of Bethlehem on Aug. 12, 2025, and added Officers Eric Hammer and Timothy Hogg in February 2026. She alleges they used excessive force when they forced their way into her house and slammed her into her wooden staircase. On Aug. 25, Gallagher threw out her claim that the city failed to train and supervise officers.
Police went to the home after an anonymous caller reported pounding and a woman screaming “get off of me,” the opinion says. Officers knew the address had a history of domestic calls. Godbey told them she was alone, denied a disturbance and said her husband, Scott Godbey, was not allowed there.
According to the opinion, she told them to get a search warrant and tried to close the door. Cahalan put his foot against it, and he and Hogg pushed it open. She fell backward into the staircase. Officers found Scott Godbey in the kitchen and arrested him.
Court records show he pleaded guilty March 8, 2024, to simple assault in a case the docket marks as domestic violence, and got 12 months of probation.
Godbey wrote that she and her husband argued that day and that he put his hands on her, but that officers did not know it when they came to the door. She said her injuries, three broken ribs, a welt on her head and bruises, came from the officers’ entry, not from him.
Federal rules generally give 30 days after a judgment to appeal, which from the Oct. 16 judgment would run to Nov. 16. The listing shows no notice of appeal through its latest entry, Oct. 22.
We have asked the Bethlehem Police Department for comment on the lawsuit and the verdict.
