Robbie Tolan

Robert Ryan Tolan

• Bats Both, Throws Right
• Height 6' 0", Weight 200 lb.

• Born July 15, 1985 in Houston, TX USA

BR Minors page

Biographical Information

Outfielder Robbie Tolan is the son of major league player Bobby Tolan. He signed with the Washington Nationals organization before the 2007 season and played for three of their affiliates that year, a total of 27 games during which he hit .201 with a homer and 10 RBIs. His stops included the GCL Nationals, Vermont Lake Monsters and Hagerstown Suns. He was released by the Nats and played in the independent leagues in 2008, suiting up for 18 games with the Bay Area Toros of the Continental Baseball League. He hit .188.

Tolan's life was upended on New Year's Eve, 2008, when around 2:00 AM, he was shot in the stomach by a police officer in the driveway of his home in Bellaire, TX. A bullet pierced his lung and lodged in his liver, causing significant damage. The police officer had apparently thought Tolan and a cousin who was with him at the time, were involved in the theft of a car and were armed, both of which accusations were false. Tolan claimed he had been the victim of racial profiling, excessive use of force, and racial harassment and sued the city of Bellaire and its police force. A criminal case originally came to trial in 2009, but it acquitted the police officers involved of the charge of aggravated assault. A concurrent federal suit against the police and the city was summarily dismissed by a judge, but the family appealed the ruling, all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in 2014 that the suit had to be reconsidered. This was hailed as a major victory for civil rights, given the public furor over a number of similar incidents between African American men and police officers at the time, and the seeming inability of the victims to ever extract any form of compensation (the original ruling had been that Tolan's family should pay the police's court fees of $7,000). The Supreme Court based its unanimous decision on the fact that the judge who had originally dismissed the suit had simply stated that the police officers could not have known that the victims or Tolan's family were black because of the late hour, without allowing the family to argue its claim for discrimination. The defendants stated at the time that the Supreme Court's ruling was a mere technicality, but following that, the U.S. Court of Appeals demanded that the case be tried again. On September 17, 2015, the defendants agreed to pay a $110,000 settlement just as it was about to go to trial.

Robbie's baseball career was put on hold by the shooting, although he did recover enough to return to play one season for the Oakland County Cruisers of the Frontier League in 2010. He played 69 games and hit .245/.297/.343 with 19 runs and 30 RBIs. The police bullet remained lodged in his liver, however.

Further Reading

• Yamiche Alcindor: "Supreme Court reignites Robbie Tolan police shooting case", USA Today, May 24, 2014. [1]
• Ed Lavandera: "Questions surround shooting of baseballer's son", cnn.com, January 8, 2009. [2]
• Craig Malisow: "Federal case against cop who shot Robbie Tolan headed back to court", Houston Press, June 17, 2014. [3]