With criminal charges hanging over him, a former white New Jersey cop acquitted in an unrelated criminal case is suing his former department, claiming he has been unfairly targeted because of his race instead of his well-documented history of abusing Black men.
Former Paterson police officer Spencer Finch was fired and arrested in 2021 after he was recorded on body camera video beating an unarmed Black man named Brandon Cosby with a flashlight 14 times, then kneeing the man in the face as he sat on the floor handcuffed during a domestic violence call. The video is posted further down in the article.
In January 2023, Finch was charged over an unrelated incident in 2018 when he used excessive force against another Black man named Justin Montgomery. Finch was acquitted of the 2021 charge against Cosby in December 2023, but the charges from the 2018 incident against Montgomery remain pending.
Finch’s main argument in his 126-page lawsuit is that the Paterson Police Department is rife with corruption, but he is the only cop who lost their job because of it, concluding he was solely targeted because of his white skin. Not much different than the lawsuit filed by a Pennsylvania cop last year, as reported by Atlanta Black Star.
“Plaintiff was a victim of … reverse race discriminatory and/or retaliatory motive existing against Officer Finch as a result of him being Caucasian,” the lawsuit filed in New Jersey Superior Court on Dec. 22 states.
Listed as defendants are Andre Sayegh, mayor of Paterson; Camelia Valdes, Passaic County prosecutor; Susan Bonds, detective with the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office; Louis Spagnola, a lieutenant with the Paterson Police Department; Edwin Martinez, the Paterson police officer who was with Finch when he beat the Black man with a flashlight; and Natasha Berwick, a sergeant with the Paterson Police Department.
He was also sure to mention that Mayor Sayegh is Middle Eastern, Valdes is Hispanic, and Bonds and Berwick are both Black.
He also accused Bonds, the Black detective from the prosecutor’s office, of having a personal connection with Montgomery, the Black man he beat in 2018, who is also the victim in his pending criminal case, but Finch did not provide evidence of that connection.
“Defendant Bonds has a reverse racist intent against plaintiff as a Caucasian police officer due to her hatred of Caucasians in general and due to her family or other internal connection with individual named Justin Montgomery and/or the Montgomery family,” the claim states.
The Paterson Police Department has a long history of civil rights violations against Black people, including the time a Paterson cop responded to shots fired and shot the first Black man he saw, paralyzing the unarmed Black man, who was only running for his safety.
The Beating
The incident that led to Finch’s termination took place on May 26, 2021, only months after the Paterson Police Department issued body cameras to officers, making Paterson the last major city in New Jersey to require officers to wear cameras.
Finch and Martinez, one of the defendants in his lawsuit, responded to a call involving Cosby trying to break down his ex-girlfriend’s apartment door, who was the mother of his two toddlers, the claim states.
The body camera worn by Martinez shows a distraught Cosby in the hallway of the apartment complex on the phone with the mother of his children, accusing her of not letting him see his kids.
Standing in front of the apartment door to his ex-girlfriend, Cosby was yelling and cursing, but was not acting violently in the video. Martinez was trying to defuse the situation by telling him to calm down and relax.
Watch the video of the beating below.
“Are you a father?” Cosby asked Martinez, to which the cop said no.
“You don’t understand, my n_gga. This is the third time my kids have been taken from me,” Cosby said.
“Yelling is not going to help,” Martinez responded.
But then Flinch — whose body camera was turned off — charged Cosby and began attacking him, beating him with his flashlight repeatedly.
His ex-girfriend opened the door and began screaming, “please stop!”
“That’s some b_tch ass sh_t,” Cosby said once he was handcuffed and lying on his stomach. “You saw him punch me in my face.”
Finch finished off the beating by ramming his knee into Cosby’s face after he was sitting up with his hands cuffed behind his back.
Cosby was charged with making terroristic threats, assault on a police officer, and resisting arrest, which were all dismissed by the Passaic Prosecutor’s Office.
Finch, meanwhile, was arrested the following month on charges of aggravated assault, official misconduct, using a prohibited weapon (his flashlight), and perjury for providing a strikingly different narrative to what was recorded on video — the first case in which a Paterson cop was charged due to evidence from body camera video.
While awaiting trial for those charges, he was indicted in January 2023 for the 2018 beating of Montgomery, who had filed a lawsuit in 2019. The civil case against Finch was settled last year for $500,000, but the criminal case remains pending.
Finch’s Lies and Exaggerations
In his lawsuit, Finch is claiming that his aggressive use of his flashlight was done out of safety for himself and others, although the video shows Cosby was not attacking anybody.
“Officer Finch’s flashlight not only probably saved his life but also the lives of defendant Martinez, three female victims in an apartment barricaded from one Brandon Cosby and Cosby himself,” the claim states.
“If Officer Finch had resorted to using his asp [baton] instead he would have probably caused severe or serious injury to Cosby as the ASP is much more lethal than a flashlight.”
He also accuses Martinez of being afraid of Cosby and not doing anything to de-escalate the situation, which required Finch to step in with his flashlight.
“Defendant Martinez failed to deescalate the situation in the hall using inferior techniques to try and calm Cosby. In part however, Cosby was out of control,” the claim states.
And once he began attacking Cosby, Finch claimed that Cosby tried to toss him out of a third-floor fire escape – but again, that is not evident on video.
“Cosby being a trained wrestler exhibiting super strength and prowess was beating Finch badly near where it appeared Cosby was trying to throw Finch out the third floor fire escape which would have killed him,” the claim states.
Finch also claims he was merely defending himself when he kneed Cosby in the face with his knee once he had been handcuffed.
“Officer Finch was straddling over Cosby so he did not try and escape or commit more crime and Cosby made a clear motion to attack Finch with his body and particularly his head and mouth appearing to try and take Officer Finch out by injuring and incapacitating him in the scrotum,” the claim states.
“Officer Finch quickly was able to knee Cosby in the mouth to avoid the injury and yet another attempt to injure Officer Finch.”
But again, the video does not show that, instead showing Martinez holding Cosby against the wall with Finch’s groin nowhere near his mouth when he struck him in the face with his knee.
Finch also listed several other cops who were accused of misconduct over the years but did not get fired, which he claims bolsters his argument of being a victim of reverse racism.
“Reverse racism was present for defendant Bonds in particular but others named as designees of the defendants and as named individual defendants acted in concert with her to help her achieve her racist motives,” the claim states.
Finch also claims to have suffered the same unconstitutional violations as many of his victims in the past have suffered.
“The plaintiff suffered great emotional disturbance and emotional trauma as a result of being a victim of the malicious and false arrest, false imprisonment, and malicious prosecution and unlawful termination process,” the claim states.
But Cosby’s lawsuit, which remains pending, claims Finch has long gotten away with his crimes.
“Defendants Police Officer Finch and Police Officer Martinez have had numerous complaints of excessive force and preparing and filing false police reports directed at African American and other minority individuals without receiving any discipline, sanctions, reprimands, suspensions, or termination by Defendant City of Paterson,” Cosby’s claim states.
