A Missouri appellate court Tuesday upheld the legality of the termination of a former Columbia police officer after he injured a prisoner in 2011.
The Missouri Court of Appeals' unanimous decision affirmed a May 2018 trial court ruling that former City Manager Mike Matthes acted within his authority in upholding the firing of former officer Rob Sanders, and that Sanders violated the city's use of force policy when he shoved Kenneth Baker against the wall of a holding cell.
Former police chief Ken Burton, who resigned in 2018, fired Sanders after the incident, in which Baker suffered a compression fracture of his vertebra. An Internal Affairs investigation concluded that Sanders had acted within department policy in his actions toward the prisoner. Sanders had been suspended four times and faced 13 disciplinary citations in his time as an officer, which Burton said played a part in his decision to fire him.
To read more, visit our partners at the Columbia Missourian.