A Ferguson, MO cop faces a civil lawsuit for injuring and hog-tying a boy. According to a lawsuit filed in 2012 in Missouri federal court, Justin Cosma and another officer, Richard Carter. approached a 12-year-old boy who was checking the mailbox at the end of his driveway in June 2010.
The pair asked the boy whether he was playing on a nearby highway, to which he answered no, according the lawsuit. It also claims the officers “became confrontational” with the child, unprovoked and without cause. They choked and slammed the boy, who was shirtless at the time, to the ground, leaving cuts, scrapes, and bruises to his body. His mother was inside the home, but was unaware of what was occurring outside.
The child was taken to a hospital for treatment. Even though the officers cited that he “resisted arrest” on the police report, Jefferson County prosecutors “refused to issue a juvenile case” against the victim.
Cosma was also one of the officers who detained journalists from HuffPost and The Washington Post earlier this month in a local McDonald’s during media coverage of the Mike Brown protests. Cosma declined to give his name or badge number at the time, refusing to identify himself to the press. Thanks to a reader’s tip, the HuffPost matched his name and face after the altercation.
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