A federal judge has overturned a jury's verdict that five police officers were justified in shooting and killing a hammer-wielding man in Brooklyn, New York City, in 1999. Judge Sterling Johnson granted a new trial to the victim and his family of Hassidic Jews. The family had sued the city alleging that the officers overreacted and used excessive force against the mentally disturbed 31-year-old. The judge says the officers exaggerated or overstated versions of the events, especially regarding key details about the shooting. He also says he has serious questions about the truthfulness of key portions of testimony by the officers. The officers had been responding to reports of a man threatening people with a hammer in a predominantly Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in New York when they shot Gidone Busch. The jurors in the civil lawsuit deliberated for one day last year before clearing the officers and the city of any liability in Busch's death. But the judge says permitting the verdict to stand would result in a miscarriage of justice.
