2nd ex-New Orleans cop takes plea deal in Hispanic beating | iNFOnews | Thompson-Okanagan's News Source
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2nd ex-New Orleans cop takes plea deal in Hispanic beating

In this Wednesday, July 25, 2018, photo, New Orleans Police Department Officers John Galman, second left, and Spencer Sutton, right, arrive in New Orleans Municipal Court for a bail hearing with their lawyers, including Jake Lemmon, left, in New Orleans, after they were accused of beating a Hispanic man at a bar. Galman pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor battery charge in February 2019. Sutton pleaded guilty to disturbing the peace Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2019. (Matthew Hinton/The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate via AP)
Original Publication Date August 07, 2019 - 10:46 AM

NEW ORLEANS - A second ex-New Orleans police officer took a plea deal Wednesday in a case where the officers allegedly beat a Hispanic man and called him a "fake American."

WDSU-TV reports that Spencer Sutton pleaded no contest to disturbing the peace. He had originally been charged with battery. He received a suspended 10-day sentence and agreed to pay $5,000 to the victim, Jorge Gomez, who was beaten unconscious.

John Galman, the other officer in the case, pleaded guilty to misdemeanour battery in February. Galman received a 30-day suspended sentence and a year's probation.

Both officers, who are white and were off-duty at the time of the incident, had been on the force less than a year and both were fired a day after the July 24, 2018, beating.

Gomez, who was born in the United States, raised in Honduras and served in the U.S. Army, is suing the city.

A police report says Galman claimed Gomez was "stealing valour" by wearing a military camouflage-style outfit.

Gomez filed a federal lawsuit against the city, Galman and Sutton last month, saying the two then-police officers "spewed vicious, racist and nativist epithets" at him "and told him to 'go back' to the place he was from."

The New Orleans Police Department has been implementing reforms under a court-backed agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice after an extensive investigation resulted in a 2011 report criticizing a wide array of department policies and practices, including allegations of discriminatory policing, racial profiling and unnecessary use of force,

The department issued a statement last month in response to Gomez's lawsuit.

"While the NOPD generally does not comment on pending litigation matters, members of our department are expected to comply with the law at all times and adhere to the highest standards of professional conduct, whether on- or off-duty," the release said. "In this case, the swift pace at which the Public Integrity Bureau investigated this incident and the decisive actions taken by the department to arrest and terminate these individuals clearly demonstrates NOPD's refusal to tolerate such behaviour."

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This story has been corrected to say the beating was in 2018, not 2017.

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Information from: WDSU-TV, http://www.wdsu.com

News from © The Associated Press, 2019
The Associated Press

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