The city of Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday fired a police officer accused of shouting racial slurs at a group of Black men, instigating a fight with them, and then lying about how he wound up injured.
It happened Thanksgiving weekend as 16-year veteran officer John Giga was off duty and out of uniform.
Last week, civil rights leaders called on the city to fire Giga, as his chief had recommended.
Giga was found bleeding profusely in a bar parking lot around 4:20 a.m. on the morning after Thanksgiving 2023, claiming someone with a bottle struck him after he tried to break up a fight, according to his department’s internal affairs investigation.
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But video showed and witnesses said Giga was the aggressor, yelling racial slurs at Black men in that parking lot, banging on a car window and following them around the corner.
Unaware Giga was an off-duty officer out of uniform, the driver of that car said, he and two others reacted to Giga taking what investigators called “a fighting stance” and struck him in the head, then hit and kicked him for about 20 more seconds, causing what Giga’s attorney told NBC6 were serious injuries.
That attorney, Eugene Gibbons, said Giga now wants the men prosecuted, but a police investigator reported, as of last month, Giga did not sign a sworn statement as a victim that would’ve allowed them to investigate further.
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Giga denied the allegations and vowed to fight his dismissal, as allowed under his union contract.
