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Boston cop, former MMA fighter to get chance to convince jury he's recovered enough from repeated head injuries to get gun back

The Supreme Judicial Court today ordered a trial for Police Officer Sean Gannon, who has been restricted to a gunless desk job since 2005, when the Boston Police Department decided repeated injuries from getting punched or kicked in the head as a mixed-martial-arts battler - including in one infamous bare-knuckle brawl - had left him without the capacity to react appropriately in an emergency, especially one that might involve the use of a gun.

Gannon, who assigned as a desk officer at District A-7 in East Boston, says his brain injuries are a handicap and that the department is therefore discriminating against him - and rejecting his argument that, in any case, he has, too, recovered sufficiently from those injuries to walk a beat again.

In its ruling, the state's highest court was not siding with Gannon, but said that the decision on whether the BPD or Gannon is correct is best left to a jury to decide. A lower-court judge had ruled in favor of Boston, saying the city had proven a "good faith belief" in the conclusions of a psychiatrist and a neuropsychologist who had examined Gannon, but the SJC said a jury should be allowed to hear from Gannon's own psychiatrist and neuropsychologist, who said Gannon's mental abilities had improved dramatically after several years.

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Comments

He is arguing that it's really unfair to discriminate against him for having brain damage that means he can't think so good anymore.... because why again? That's not a disability that would prevent him from doing his job to an appropriate standard?

I dunno. I would like to think he won't win that. I'd like to see the court rule that having your brain work right is a legitimate job requirement for a Boston patrolman.

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Let me guess. He can't do flag details.

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BPD wants detail officers who could act as an actual cop on an emergency.

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"I have brain damage so you can't deny me a gun."
Please remind me to stay out of East Boston should this officer win his case.

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They let him keep his job, but found alternate duties he was capable of. That sounds like a reasonable accommodation to me.

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