For nearly four years, lawyers for the city have maintained in court that Officer Jerald Williams did nothing wrong when he body-slammed a 32-year-old schizophrenic man who spit on the officer during a 2019 encounter.
But the city didn’t turn over documents that showed the Civilian Office of Police Accountabilty and Chicago Police Supt. David Brown agreed Williams’s use of force against Bernard Kersh was “massively excessive”— and that another officer involved in Kersh’s arrest is facing firing for his conduct, according to an emergency motion filed this week by Kersh’s lawyers..
After a brief emergency hearing Friday, Cook County Judge Gerald Cleary ordered an evidentiary hearing on the allegations, and potential sanctions against the city. The city Law Department declined comment Friday, citing the pending litigation.
Even after two rounds of discovery in Kersh’s lawsuit, Kersh’s legal team found out only last month that Williams had been disciplined for his treatment of Kersh— and then, only because they happened to see a news report that Williams had been involved in alleged abuse of a detainee at the Cook County Jail a few months before his encounter with Kersh, said Andrew M. Stroth, one of Kersh’s attorneys.
Kersh’s lawyers then asked to see the file on that other incident involving Williams.
“The file on [Kersh] was just slipped in with the file on this other incident, and only after we asked about it because we had seen a story about a prior incident with Williams that also wasn’t provided to us by the city,” Stroth said.
“If we wouldn’t have asked about it, we would have gone to trial in a few months without knowing this damning evidence that the city’s lawyers are saying one thing in court while their own police chief is saying the exact opposite.”
Cellphone captured by bystanders shows Williams, a competitive mixed martial arts fighter, throw Kersh to the ground near West 79th Avenue and Cottage Grove, with Kersh’s head landing on a curb. Another officer hauled an unconscious Kersh into the back of a police vehicle.
Williams said he had approached Kersh, who was drinking at a bus stop, and threw Kersh down after Kersh spit in his eye. Kersh was arrested for aggravated battery of a police officer, as well as resisting arrest and drinking in the public way.
In the more than three years Kersh’s lawsuit has been pending, city lawyers handed over batches of records at least twice, according to the motion by Kersh’s lawyers. A February 2019 delivery came more than a week after Brown had signed off on a letter concurring with COPA findings that Williams used excessive force — and Brown called for a suspension that was three times longer than COPA recommended.
Earlier this year, a judge dismissed Williams’ fellow officer Mark Johnson from the lawsuit, Stroth noted. That ruling was made without the judge or Kersh’s legal team knowing COPA had recommended Johnson be fired for hauling an unconscious Kersh into the back of a police vehicle without waiting for medics to examine his injuries. The motion seeks have Johnson restored as a defendant.
Among other sanctions, Kersh’s lawyers want to bar the city from arguing that Williams’ use of force was justified. If successful, that would essentially turn the court proceeding into a process of determining how much to award Kersh in damages.
