Post by KC on Aug 25, 2006 23:29:32 GMT -5
Officer Marcus Mosby
August 26, 2006 - MEMPHIS, TN -- The city government's civil service commission will decide next week if former Memphis police Officer Marcus Mosby will be allowed to rejoin the force he served for 9 years.
In March, Mosby was acquitted on a sexual battery charge. A woman who waved the officer over for assistance in 2004 accused him of fondling her in the back of his tactical van. Her flawed testimony and a lack of evidence exonerated the officer.
But Assistant City Attorney Skip Jones, drawing heavily from testimony and a written report by Memphis Police Director Larry Godwin, told the civil service commission in a hearing Friday that Mosby admitted to leaving his duty assignment, failing to radio in his location to dispatchers and failing to run a background check on the woman and her male companion the night of the alleged sexual encounter -- all violations of police department policies and causes for termination.
"This police officer did everything possible to not create a record," said Jones in his closing argument before the commission. Jones added that Mosby exercised "willful ignorance" in not running a check on the woman and her companion because if he had, he would have discovered her companion was driving under a suspended license and should have been arrested. Jones also argued that Mosby willfully left his duty hunting for gang activity to make the traffic stop, another violation of department policy.
Mosby testified he was on his way back to the tactical squad's headquarters at the southeast precinct when the couple flagged him down. He testified he stopped simply to make sure the couple was not engaging in a prostitution deal, and he used his cell phone to call his supervising officer and tell him he was running late because he was rendering assistance.
"I was not going to run them," Mosby testified. "I was going to give them a break. It was my discretion. My initial reason was to just give them a warning (about soliciting rides)."
Ted Hansom, Mosby's attorney, said officers are allowed discretion in these situations. He said terminating the officer because he used a cell phone instead of his 2-way radio and because he decided not to run a background check will have every Memphis police officer thinking twice about stopping for a citizen in need of assistance.
"If there is a woman waving you down who is in distress, don't you dare stop her! Don't you dare stop for her! Don't you find out whether or not that's what it is because you're supposed to be hunting for gangs, and that message I think would be a very bad message if it got out," said Hansom.
City Civil Service Commission Chairman John Horne said the commission would render its decision by the first part of next week. "We have a tactical officer leaving his normal duty and essentially assuming the duty of a patrol officer," said Horne. "We have to decide by the regulations accordingly."
www.wreg.com/Global/story.asp?S=5327956