Court orders reinstatment of Boston cop after arbitrator determined he used justifiable force in arresting an angry drunk man

The Supreme Judicial Court today ordered the reinstatement of a Boston cop the city fired for the way he used a choke hold to help restrain a man angry over a traffic incident in the North End in 2009 - in a ruling that also castigates the city for taking its sweet time to investigate the matter.

The ruling by the state's highest court means that, barring an appeal to federal court, Officer David Williams will get his job back - and the city will still be out the $1.4 million it paid the man to settle his federal lawsuit.

At issue was an incident in which the man and two friends, after spending St. Patrick's Day in bars, tried to move one of their cars from its spot on a North End street to avoid a ticket the next day - only to hit a double-parked car. The three grew angry and called the cops. The man began yelling at one of the cops, who tried to arrest him but was unable to get both his wrists cuffed. His partner, Williams came over, got the man on the ground and applied a choke hold as the man was cuffed.

The city fired Williams, charging he used excessive force and then lied by saying he didn't. The Boston Police Patrolmen's Association appealed to an arbitrator - who ruled that, in fact, Williams did not use excessive force to restrain an angry, drunk man in the process of arrest and so he didn't lie about excessive force and deserved his job back. Among the arbitrator's findings: The man was not actually choked during the time he was pinned to the ground, and that

The city then appealed, arguing, in part, that "public policy," in this case, its right to fire an officer for cause, trumped his right to arbitration under a union contract.

In some cases, yes, the court countered, but not here, because the arbitrator ruled there was no evidence of wrongdoing:

Because the arbitrator found that Williams used reasonable force and was not untruthful in subsequent investigations, the award reinstating him must be upheld.

The court then continued, however, that if the city is concerned about officers applying risky and potentially fatal choke holds, it should develop specific language proscribing their use - current police regulations refer to excessive force, but not choke holds specifically:

Today's decision should not be read to view the city -- and more importantly, the citizens of Boston -- as without remedy moving forward. First, it is incumbent on the city to clarify its own policies with respect to excessive force and specifically choke holds if it does not wish in the future to relinquish interpretive control of that term. ...

If anything, it is the unpredictable dangerousness of choke holds that warns against their use at all. Indeed, it is untenable to assert both that choke holds are so potentially dangerous that reinstating officers who use them violates public policy and that the commissioner retains the discretion to determine whether a choke hold is excessive force in any given case. As discussed supra, it is because choke holds are unpredictably lethal that both officers and the public deserve a bright-line rule.

But in that case, the court added, the city needs to investigate accusations of excessive force promptly:

Second, the city must investigate allegations of excessive force with substantially more alacrity than was evidenced here. Pursuant to its own existing rules,11 the department owes a duty, both to the public and to its own officers, to investigate allegations of excessive force thoroughly and promptly. As with the tension between a choke hold's dangerousness and the commissioner's desire to retain discretionary review of their use, it is difficult to reconcile the department's position that an officer's use of a choke hold requires termination with its protracted inaction in this case.