Jury awards $5.2 million to police captain attacked by officer

A six-year-old altercation outside a strip club involving an on-duty Baltimore police officer and an off-duty officer will cost taxpayers $5.2 million.

The federal jury’s verdict Thursday ended a long story that first featured then-Sgt. Henrietta Middleton was charged in August 2018 with assaulting an on-duty officer, Marlon Koushall. Koushall responded by breaking up a fight at Norma Jean’s strip club on The Block.

However, soon after, a video surfaced online showing Koushall punching Middleton in the face and then throwing her to the ground by her hair. The State Attorney’s Office dropped the charges against Middleton and charged Koushall with second-degree assault.

He was sentenced at a bench trial in October 2019. Police confirmed he remains with the department.

In 2020, Middleton, who also remains with the department and is a captain in the Northern District, sued in U.S. District Court, and the case went to trial last month.

“We are completely satisfied with the jury’s outcome,” said one of Middleton’s attorneys, Latoya A. Francis-Williams. “Our goal was to capture Captain Middleton’s humanity… It was about compensating for the humiliation she experienced, not only the pain and suffering but also the mistreatment.”

Koushall maintained that Middleton was the aggressor and that he was defending himself.

Originally Judge Lynn Stewart Mays sentenced Koushall to six years in prison, with one day to be served suspended, as well as three years probation and 100 hours of community service.

The Police Department did not initially charge Koushall in the incident, but his conviction resulted in an internal criminal prosecution.

An internal use of force review found in 2020 that Koushall’s actions were “objectively reasonable and consistent with accepted standards of police practices, policies and training” and that de-escalation techniques rather than use of force “were not available to Sgt. Koushall during this incident and immediate action was required.”

Koushall stated in his testimony that he would face dismissal as a result of his conviction and asked for his sentence to be changed. Just days before his release date, Stewart Mays commuted his sentence to pre-sentence probation.

He kept his job, and the case is no longer listed in online court records.

Although Middleton has been promoted twice, he is her lawyer she stated that she wanted to return to internal affairs, where she worked at the time of the row. “He continues to put his head down and climb the ladder,” Francis-Williams said.