The same Prince George’s County police officer who fatally shot a handcuffed man – resulting in a $20 million dollar settlement – is now at the center of another lawsuit over police brutality in the county.  

The lawsuit, filed by the law firm Murphy, Falcon & Murphy, outlines numerous allegations of excessive force by Corporal Michael A. Owen throughout his ten-year tenure  – describing the veteran officer as the “epitome of [Prince George’s County Police Department’s] condonation of brutality.” Both Owen and Prince George’s County are named as defendants in the suit, facing a total of ten counts relating to police abuse of power and violations of constitutional rights.  

This is the second suit filed against the county by the firm, who reached a $20 million settlement in 2020 with the family of William Green, the man Owen fatally shot while he sat handcuffed in a police car early that year.. The settlement marked a payment significantly higher than those in other police murders nationwide, such as Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown, and Philando Castile. 

The new lawsuit names four Black men who were arrested by Owen in the year before Green’s murder as plaintiffs: Jonathan Harris, Devonne Gaillard Jr., Demetrice A. Patterson, and Jerry Costen. The suit accuses Owen of using excessive force in separate instances against each man in the year before he killed Green, underscoring repeated claims of negligence and oversight of police misconduct by the county’s police department. 

“William was not the first black man to die at the hands of PGPD police; Plaintiffs Costen, Harris, Patterson, and Gaillard were hardly the first black men to be brutalized at the hands of the PGPD; because PGPD systemically accepted the policy that black lives did not matter,” reads the suit, filed Dec. 30 in the U.S. District Court of Greenbelt. 

The lawyer representing the men, Malcolm Ruff, says the firm began investigating Owen and the department’s behavior when they were hired by Green’s family shortly after his killing. Throughout their investigation, Ruff says they discovered multiple instances of Owen’s misconduct that went unaddressed by the department. 

“It shows the deliberate indifference that the county had towards the safety and the constitutional rights of the county citizens,” Ruff says.

A spokesperson for Prince George’s County declined to comment on the allegations in the suit, and the lawyer representing Owen did not immediately return DCist/WAMU’s request for comment.

In January 2019, Owen stopped Jonathan Harris, who was driving to a salvage lot, for having no registration tag displayed. According to the suit, Owen pulled Harris out of the car and forced him to the ground, putting him in a chokehold. Harris was arrested and charged with second degree assault and resisting arrest, but the charges were later dismissed when a District Court commissioner concluded Owen lacked probable cause for the arrest. 

Months later, in July, Owen allegedly assaulted Devonne Gaillard Jr. while responding to a domestic violence call.  According to the suit, Gaillard was speaking with another officer when Owen threw him to the ground. Owen charged Gaillard with disorderly conduct and failure to obey a lawful order – charges that were later dismissed by the state attorney in 2020. 

That same month, Demetrice Patterson encountered Owen while riding a dirt bike that police officers believed was stolen, according to the suit. Owen and other officers grabbed Patterson and pushed him to the ground. After he was handcuffed, Owen fired his gun in the direction of Patterson but did not hit him. Police maintain the shot was accidental, according to the Washington Post. Patterson had bought the dirt bike online and did not know it was stolen, and the charges brought against him were later dismissed. 

In December 2019, a month before Owen shot and killed William Green, he stopped Jerry Costen at a shopping plaza while responding to a report of an active shooter nearby. According to the lawsuit, Costen was helping his niece with a broken down car in the parking lot of the plaza. Owen allegedly detained Costen without explaining why he was under arrest, handcuffed him, and threw him to the ground, repeatedly choking him. Owen charged Costen with assault and disorderly conduct charges, all of which were later dismissed by the state attorney’s office. 

Owen’s assault of both Gaillard and Patterson triggered the police department’s “early-warning system,” that summer, intended to flag repeated patterns of troubling behavior by officers, a Washington Post report revealed. But supervisors were not notified until January 2020, and did not take action before Owen fatally shot Green that month. Supervisors were also not aware that Owen had sought workers’ compensation for psychological issues stemming from a fatal shooting earlier in his career. 

The lawsuit is seeking $75,000 in compensatory damages for all four men – who “sustained significant physical, emotional, mental, and financial injuries, including, but not limited to pain and suffering, mental anguish, humiliation, disgrace, loss of dignity, and other expenses.” 

Owen, who is currently facing second-degree murder and voluntary and involuntary manslaughter changes for the murder of Green, now faces counts of excessive force, assault and battery, violation of civil rights, and improper use of police powers, per the lawsuit. It also takes aim at the county for counts of negligence, violating citizen’s constitutional rights, and failing to train, supervise, or discipline officers. 

“One of the major foundational principles of our lawsuits rests in the fact that Prince George’s County had a system set up to weed out officers like Officer Owen, and yet they did not follow those rules,” Ruff says. “They did not flag those officers, and as a direct result, county citizens were killed or maimed, were embarrassed, or humiliated and beaten by police with no justification.” 

The suit comes as Prince George’s County officials publicly attempt to reconcile a history of excessive force and brutality by police officers against predominantly Black residents. Following Green’s killing, County Executive Angela Alsobrooks expanded the county’s body-camera pilot program to outfit the entire force with cameras by the end of 2020. In 2021, the county broke ground on a new mental health and addiction facility – in part funded with money diverted from the police budget. The county also hired a new police chief in March 2021, after former chief Hank Stawinski resigned in June amid the release of a report detailing racial discrimination and retaliation within the police department. 

But the county also spent nearly $18 million fighting those allegations in a years-long lawsuit, the Washington Post reported in 2021. Filed originally in 2018, the suit alleged that the department fostered racist conduct against officers of color. 

“I think Prince George’s County has some real amends to make with the community,” Ruff says.  “It means being consistent across the board in your response to the deficiencies that have been laid out, not just by our firm, not just by the victims that we represent, but also by advocates all over the county, who are telling county leaders that while incremental change is good, there needs to be wide, sweeping changes that will actually change the culture of how the department addresses these issues.”