Cozzi previously pleadd guilty and admitted that he “lost it” when he attacked 60-year-old Randle Miles, 62, who was handcuffed and shackled to a wheelchair at the time. The attack with his baton is shown on the video below. He pleaded guilty to a civil rights violation.
What is odd is that Cozzi was only sentenced previously to a misdemeanor battery. What does it take to convict a police officer of a felony. Yet, the victim should be satisfied that there was any charge at all given the treatment of a recent case of a Chattanooga police officer.
Cozzi received 18 months’ probation. The case was later referred to the federal prosecutors for a civil rights investigation.
Cozzi says that Miles had become “combative” and simply “I made a mistake. I should not have hit him because he was handcuffed and secured.”
After shackling the man’s legs to the wheelchair, he hit him with a sap (similar to blackjack). Officers have complained that Cozzi was being treated badly and that his case should not have been referred to the FBI by Superintendent Jody Weis after his light probation sentence,
His attorney, Terence Gilespie complained “This is a message to all those officers in blue out there that after 15 years on the job you’ll get thrown under the bus.” Well, at least he was not in a wheelchair at the time.
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Kudos: Big Fella