Ferguson police officer Justin Cosma was in the center of the drama that unfolded in the Missouri town during the Mike Brown shooting death protests. Additionally, Cosma is fighting a civil rights lawsuit after he was accused of hog-tying and choking a 12-year-old boy back in 2010.
Cosma was in the news earlier this month after being discovered as one of the officers who helped detain and allegedly assaulted a journalist working out of a Ferguson McDonald’s. It appears that Cosma has a history of aggressive behavior while wearing the uniform as revealed by the Huffington Post over the weekend.
From the Huffington Post:
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. Cosma was an officer with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office at the time, the lawsuit states. The pair asked the boy if he’d been playing on a nearby highway, and he replied no, according to the lawsuit.
Then, the officers “became confrontational” and intimidated the child, the lawsuit claims. “Unprovoked and without cause, the deputies grabbed [the boy], choked him around the neck and threw him to the ground,” it says. The boy was shirtless at the time, and allegedly “suffered bruising, choke marks, scrapes and cuts across his body.”
The 12-year-old was transferred to a medical facility for treatment, but the lawsuit says Cosma and the other officer reported the incident as “assault of a law enforcement officer third degree” and “resisting/interfering with arrest, detention or stop.”
Jefferson County prosecutors “refused to issue a juvenile case” against the young child, the suit says.
According to the report, Cosma was new to the Ferguson job when the incident between he and the boy occurred. No word from Cosma or his legal representation, but the attorney for the victim of the alleged assault simply reiterated the details of the suit and the reasons why it was brought forth.
[Gawker]
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