By Catherine Wilson, The Associated Press
MIAMI (AP) - A well-traveled lawsuit claiming a racist police officer purposely ran over a plainclothes detective within his own department has been dismissed by a federal judge after once producing a $5.7 million jury award.
U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King threw out the suit against Miami-Dade County. He noted “compelling evidence” against Sgt. William Alsbury but said the county couldn’t anticipate racially motivated intent when Alsbury used his patrol car to run down Detective Michael Perez.
“While it might be unwise policy to permit racists to serve as county officers, (Perez) has not presented evidence that a ‘plainly obvious consequence’ of employing Alsbury would be the intentional, unlawful use of force against African-Americans,” the judge wrote last week in a 27-page order.
Perez, who is black, was not in uniform when he was chasing a Radio Shack robbery suspect on foot in 1995. Alsbury, who said he thought Perez was a suspect, claimed he hit the detective when he lost control of his car on wet grass.
Perez suffered herniated discs and knee and ankle injuries. He suffers chronic pain and remains on light duty with the department.
Perez sued the department in 1997, claiming it had “a custom, practice and policy” of using excessive force in arrests. He maintained his department responded to his complaints about Alsbury by trying to force him out, harassing him and putting him under surveillance.
The suit has had a topsy-turvy history. It has been appealed twice to the Atlanta-based federal appeals court, and Perez’s attorney Peter Bellas said Wednesday that it is heading there for a third time.
“We are extremely disappointed given the amount of evidence that we amassed,” Bellas said. “We respectfully disagree with the court’s decision and intend on appealing.”
Murray Greenberg, a first assistant county attorney, said: “We are very pleased with the end result. We think it’s the appropriate one.”
King originally decided the brutality issue in favor of Perez after the county attorney assigned to the case repeatedly missed deadlines for filing required court papers. A jury that considered only the question of damages in 1998 returned the multimillion-dollar judgment, but the appeals court sent the case back.
Alsbury died after retiring.