Several news outlets have reported that a man who was shot in the head during the course of a police training exercise in Maryland earlier this year has filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against Baltimore and the Baltimore Police Department.
The victim was working as a campus police trainee for the University of Maryland, Baltimore. He was injured when another officer reportedly used a “live” weapon to scare him away from a window during the course of training. Due to the officer’s alleged intentional or negligent conduct in firing the weapon in the man’s direction, he was critically injured. He has since lost an eye, and has been undergoing rehabilitation.
The lawsuit, which accuses the city of selecting a dangerous training site, and negligence in failing to ensure safety procedures were followed, names as defendants the individual officers involved, the City, and the Police Department, and seeks millions of dollars in damages.
The plaintiff’s attorney stated that, “His motor skills, his memory and all of those things are affected, and he will be impaired and have to receive medical attention for the rest of his life,”
Additionally disconcerting is the fact that according to the plaintiff’s attorneys, a similar style of training was conducted with live weapons just a few weeks ago. Luckily no one was hurt during that incident.