$40 million suit filed Against Baltimore Police for Beating Handcuffed Black Man, Delaying Medical Help

Albert Mosley is in a wheelchair, unable to walk and barely able to move his arms. He says it's because a Baltimore officer threw him headfirst into the concrete wall of a police district holding cell. Yesterday, almost two years after he was injured, Mosley filed a $40 million police brutality lawsuit in Baltimore Circuit Court against the police officer, Bryan Kershaw. "I don't want the police to get away with this," said Mosley, 54. Mosley's lead attorney, William H. Murphy Jr., said such violence is "rampant" in the Police Department and pointed to a jury verdict last year that awarded a similar amount to a man whose neck was broken during a 1997 arrest. Kershaw could not be reached for comment, but Lt. Frederick V. Roussey, president of the local police union, said an internal investigation cleared the officer of any wrongdoing. Both Roussey and a police spokesman disputed Murphy's contention of widespread police brutality. According to the complaint, an intoxicated and handcuffed Mosley, who had been picked up on a probation violation, became loud and unruly behind bars at the Western District police station. Kershaw, who was supervising Mosley and four other prisoners, engaged in a shouting match with him and later entered the cell, picked him up and tossed him against the wall, Mosley contends. Handcuffed, Mosley was unable to break his fall. Mosley lay on the cell floor for about 45 minutes, immobile and bleeding from a gash over his left eye, he says. Kershaw and other officers at the station ignored the other prisoners' shouts for help, Mosley says. [more] and [more]