Judge: Suit cannot alter policy on mounted officers

An Iraq War veteran seriously injured by a Nassau County police officer's horse at a 2008 demonstration outside Hofstra University cannot use a lawsuit to force changes in the department's policies on using mounted officers, a federal judge has ruled.

Nicholas Morgan last year sued Nassau County and several police officials over the Oct. 15, 2008, incident. As the university hosted a presidential debate between candidates Barack Obama and John McCain, Morgan, 26, and 200 to 300 other anti-war protesters demonstrated near one of Hofstra's Hempstead Turnpike entrances.

Morgan's suit says he was knocked to the ground by police as they tried to move the group. While Morgan was on the ground, a police horse stepped on Morgan's head, crushing his right cheekbone, shattering his orbital bone and breaking his nose.

The suit sought both monetary damages and a court order forcing Nassau mounted police officers to receive better training on the "unconstitutionality" of using horses to break up a crowd in a nonemergency situation.

In his ruling Thursday, U.S. District Judge Arthur Spatt wrote that because Morgan now lives in West Virginia, he "is thus unlikely to be affected in the future by Nassau County's use of mounted police officers."

Morgan's attorney, Jonathan Moore of Manhattan, called Spatt's decision "unfortunate, because I think the way the police acted on that evening suggests that there are problems with the way they're trained and supervised."

"He brought this suit because he wants to see that it doesn't happen again," Moore said Friday.