Police detective accused of wrongful arrests

Philippe Archer named as co-defendants in 3 civil lawsuits

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. ā€“ At least three people claim they've been beaten and wrongly arrested by a veteran Miami Beach police detective, and one of those cases was settled this summer.

Andrew Mossberg told Local 10 last week that he thought he was stopping a robbery when Philippe Archer, an undercover Miami Beach police detective, knocked him unconscious and arrested him. The department launched an internal affairs investigation into the incident.

"The Miami Beach Police Department has to know that Detective Archer is a problem," said Michael Goodman, an attorney who represents Guy Moulin.

Moulin is one of three people who have named Archer as a co-defendant in separate civil lawsuits filed against the city of Miami Beach.

"He can't just keep beating people, getting sued, and they pretend like nothing ever happened," said Goodman.

The city paid Moulin $60,000 in a settlement in June.

What may be more telling is that the state attorney declined to prosecute those arrested.

"If they are not guilty, then something happened that shouldn't have happened," said Miami Beach Mayor Matti Herrera Bower. "I am sick and tired of all this bad publicity that the Miami Beach city police is getting."

Herrera Bower said the FBI's public corruption task force is investigating Archer. She said she has asked the city manager and police chief to figure out how to restore confidence in the department.

"We should have things in place so this doesn't happen," she said. "We have to fix our police department because my concern is that every citizen in Miami Beach should feel very safe with the police around."

The earlier version of this article misquoted Herrera Bower. It has since been corrected. We apologize for the error.