Officer Vincent E. Cosom argued before the arrest in the early hours of June 15 outside a liquor store. However, a woman with Truss is seen separating the two and leading Truss away. Truss continued to walk away but police clearly decided to arrest him. Cosom in his report said that he twice asked Truss to leave the area but that Truss answered with a profanity and said “I’ll see you when I get outside.” Cosum said that Truss “pushed the female with open hands three times” and that Truss He adopted a fighting stance and clenched a fist. He wrote in his report: “Me and the male got into a physical altercation due to me being in fear of my safety, and I received a punch to the body.”
However, the video below shows Truss had a bag in one hand and the woman was holding his other arm as they paused near a bus stop. Cosom stepped around a group of bystanders before attacking Truss.
Cosom, a six-year veteran, is named in the lawsuit.
Truss was hit with a series of charges — a pattern that we have seen in past abusive arrests where charges are piled on (creating pressure for a plea and discouraging any lawsuit). Notably, the officers were denied booking until they took Truss to the hospital. Later, prosecutors dropped all charges.
Later however investigators concluded that Truss’s injuries were the result of his felling and they cleared the other officers. There is no mention of what these officers reported. We often see in these cases that there is a rarely any attention to the obligation of officers to come forward to report abuse or attention to the lack of any contradiction from officers (with the narrative of the central officer) in documented cases of abuse.
Cosom remains on duty.
Source: Baltimore Sun