Opening Statements In Trial Of Long Troubled Opa-locka Cop
MIAMI (CBSMiami) - Opening statements got underway Tuesday in the trial of a suspended Opa-locka police sergeant who faces a number of charges including false imprisonment and tampering with a witness.
In her opening remarks, Assistant State Attorney Ansley Peacock told jurors German Bosque punched Corey Davis in the face on August 3rd, 2011 when Bosque and other officers arrived on a domestic call. Davis was sitting with his toddler on his lap in a car, refusing to return him to his mother who had called police.
Peacock said Bosque grabbed the boy from Davis, then punched the man in the face and let him go. When Davis went to the police department to make a complaint, the dispatcher summoned Bosque who allegedly slammed him against a wall, cuffed him and kept him in a holding cell for about 15 minutes before letting him go.
Security video only shows the alleged victim in the lobby, and in the holding cell where Bosque removed the handcuffs. The alleged battery by the officer would have to have occurred out of camera range.
Defense attorney Jacqueline Arango told jurors Bosque cut a belligerent Davis a break by not arresting him at the scene of the domestic incident where he alledgedly tried to strike the baby's mother with his car. She said at least five officers who were there will testify Bosque never hit the man. She said Bosque cut him another break by not arresting him at the police station for resisting officers at the domestic scene and for allegedly using his car as a weapon.
Arango said Davis fabricated the alleged abuse with making money in mind.
"This case is about Corey Davis laying the groundwork for a civil lawsuit," Bosque's attorney said .
Bosque has a checkered past with the police department. During his career there, he's been fired, then re-instated, eight times. The last time the city fired him, October 2012, Bosque faced a number of allegations including:
- Busting a handcuffed suspects skull
- Beating juveniles
- Caught with drugs and alcohol in his squad car
- Ripping off suspects
- Falsifying reports
- Participating in an unauthorized chase where four people were killed
- Calling in sick from Cancun.
In a court hallway before the start of the trial Bosque said he's confident that a jury will acquit him.
"The facts are always studied. Every single time, I'm always found acquitted, I'm standing on my feet, I get my job back because I am a good officer," said Bosque.
Bosque says he has been wrongly portrayed in the news.
"Anybody who doesn't know me or know about the case exactly, they hate me. I hate myself when I read what the media says about me, and it's not true."
The trial is expected to last several days and Judge Miguel de la O hopes to have closing arguments done by Friday.
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