The Baltimore police officer who on Monday lost a $44 million police brutality suit will not be disciplined, a police spokesman said Tuesday.
“No, there will not be any disciplinary actions as a result of him being sued or the verdict,” said Detective Donnie Moses, a police department spokesman. “Officers get sued all the time. The internal investigation is now closed, and if he would have been disciplined, it would have been at that time.”
A Baltimore City Circuit Court jury ruled that Officer Bryan Kershaw must pay Albert Mosley $44 million because of a 2003 altercation inside a city jail cell that left Mosley a quadriplegic.
“I didn?t believe there was justice in the world until yesterday,” Mosley said of the verdict in an interview with The Examiner on Tuesday. “I?ve finally seen justice. I thank God for my attorney Billy Murphy. I?m indebt to him for the rest of my life.”
Mosley was arrested June 25, 2003, and taken to the city police department?s holding area of the Western District police station.
He was handcuffed with his arms behind his back and became engaged in an “angry exchange” with Kershaw, who was outside of the cell, according to the suit.
“… Kershaw quickly moved toward Mr. Mosley, grabbed him, pulled him up to a standing position and violently threw Mr. Mosley toward a concrete wall,” Mosley?s suit states. “… Mr. Mosley fell to the ground, now paralyzed.”
Kershaw?s attorney, James Fields, argued that the officer was defending himself in an altercation with Mosley, and Mosley fell into the wall, leaving him paralyzed.
“It was not malicious,” Fields said during his closing arguments July 28. “He didn?t mean to harm him. … He was defending himself.”
“Mosley was arrested in the context of the war on drugs,” Murphy said. “You get angry cops required to perform mass arrests clashing with citizens. This case means so much to me individually. It?s the confluence of what?s wrong in our society.”
