A jury declared that Ropheal McGee Jr. should be granted over $300,000 in compensatory damages after he sued the City of Gainesville and Gainesville Police Department (GPD) Corporal Casey Walsh for attacking him with a K-9.
With counsel for McGee and the counsel for the defendants reaching an impasse during a mediation conference, they took the case to trial last week.
The day after the trial concluded, a juror contacted GnvInfo, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
In pre-interview text messages, the juror advised that he believes Walsh “dropped the leash and lied,” stating her dog “behaved completely out of control, shaking his head and shredding to the point he needed a tourniquet… This was in 2021, just after [graduating] from the K-9 program. The city freaked out when it heard we were going to award punitive damages against her as well as the $300k compensatory damages, and [they] flew over to offer a settlement, which Mr. McGee accepted… We found without malice, which means the city is responsible for her actions… I [don’t] doubt the city will continue to employ her. Her dog just won the ‘hardest hitting dog’ in a national competition. He looked like a trained fighting dog, not a police dog. They’re supposed to bite once and hold. He was doing real damage, and Mr. McGee almost bled out… She literally dropped the leash the second they announced their presence. No orders given, no time to comply. He was literally hands up and kneeling when the dog got him, less than 2 seconds after they announced… We specifically wanted her to be on the hook for the compensation but the city for the punitive, because it was the city that approved both her and the dog as trained, and clearly the issue goes beyond just one dog and one officer. The entire division needs to be fixed.”
Court records show officers were chasing McGee over charges of robbery with a firearm and two counts of burglary. McGee, unable to post the $350,000 bond, spent over a month in jail until prosecutors dropped the charges.
Complaint:
McGee’s counsel filed the lawsuit on January 31, 2025, for an amount in excess of $75,000.
The incident occurred at night on November 7, 2021…