Rodolfo Gomez was caught on camera punching, kneeing and gouging the eyes of Deron Love, repeatedly compelling him to confess to killing his 7-month old baby, during an interrogation in August 2013.
Chained to the wall, Love, 27, maintained his innocence, screaming in the face of Gomez. He was found not guilty of first-degree reckless homicide and child neglect in 2014.
Gomez was charged with two felonies and fired from the police department back in Dec. 2013. He appealed, claiming that he “feared for his safety” as Love yelled at him while chained to the wall, prompting him to savagely beat him.
Gomez was found not guilty last month, after his defense team used a slow-motion video to convince the jury that the detective was acting in self-defense, even though Love did not fight back.
"For me [the defense expert's] testimony was crucial to understanding what Gomez did," juror Barry Gardner told the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel. "We scoured individual frames of video over and over and over. We went back into the room to watch the full motion video again during deliberation."
The jury was eventually convinced that Gomez was not guilty, since Love suffered no serious injuries.
Gomez has appealed his firing and applied for duty disability retirement. Meanwhile, Loved has filed a civil rights suit against Gomez.
