By of the

In its second day of deliberation, a jury on Thursday found Rodney Lloyd, a Milwaukee police officer fired after his rough treatment of a handcuffed suspect was caught on police station video, guilty of misconduct in public office but not guilty of abusing a prisoner.

Both charges are low-level felonies that carry a maximum prison term of 18 months. Sentencing was set for May 9 before Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Glenn Yamahiro.

Lloyd's family and supporters cried in the gallery as the verdicts were announced after about nine hours of deliberation. He declined to comment.

Jurors also declined to discuss how they arrived at the split verdicts.

The question they had to decide boiled down to whether Lloyd, 49, was establishing control over a resisting subject or inflicting punishment for persistent, vile verbal aggression when he slammed Alejandro Lafreniere into a booking room wall in June.

An internal police review found Lloyd, a 21-year veteran of the department, had used excessive force, and he was later fired. He has appealed.

His attorney, Steve Kohn, called it a difficult case, well presented by both sides, and though the defense disagreed, it respects the jury's decisions.

Michael Crivello, president of the Milwaukee Police Association, who was present for the trial, said later that the jury simply got it wrong.

"It is extremely difficult to understand how a guilty verdict arose from the officer's actions," Crivello wrote in an email Thursday afternoon. "Our officers have a very difficult job; they need the support of those they protect.

"This officer has served admirably for 20 years. The verdict represents great personal family loss — but even greater loss to a community that has lost 'one good cop.'"

About an hour after the noon verdict, Lafreniere's attorney, Jonathan Safran, said his client was pleased that Lloyd was found guilty of abusing his power.

"This former officer was clearly out of control and he should have instead used his training to properly deal with the situation of an unruly arrestee," Safran said. He said Lafreniere was never prosecuted for any acts that prompted his arrest back in June.

He said Lafreniere regrets saying what he did to Lloyd and will wait for Lloyd's sentencing before deciding whether to sue for damages.

The booking room video that showed Lloyd pushing Lafreniere down to a bench was the central evidence at trial, repeatedly played for jurors. To start closing arguments Wednesday, Chief Deputy District Attorney Kent Lovern replayed it two more times.

"You've heard experts talk about it, but at the end of the day you can see what you can see there," he said.

Lovern again expressed no respect or sympathy for Lafreniere, 28, but said Lloyd clearly did not truly fear for his own safety, despite Lafreniere's verbal threats, because Lloyd didn't call for help or alert the officer in booking he had an unruly or risky prisoner.

Instead, Lloyd held Lafreniere by the neck and "pile drives him into the wall," Lovern said. No matter how foul and disagreeable Lafreniere may have been, "words alone don't justify the conduct," Lovern said.

Lloyd's attorney, Kohn, reminded jurors that an expert in training officers in the use of force, a Kenosha County sheriff's deputy with far more field experience than the Milwaukee police training expert who testified for the state, said Lloyd had done everything "by the book."

That expert broke down the incident on slow-motion video, suggesting Lafreniere jerked his head up as Lloyd was moving him down to a bench, and that the sound heard is a bench and table colliding, not Lafreniere's head smacking the concrete.

Far from being out of control, Kohn said, Lloyd actually "showed great restraint" in his handling of Lafreniere, whom he had arrested June 16 on a domestic violence charge.

Had Lloyd really wanted to exact personal punishment or revenge, Kohn said, he could have easily done so in the hallways between the District 2 garage and the booking room, where there were no video cameras.

Kohn asked jurors how many times they've watched a TV football game and yelled that a ref had blown a call — until they watch the slow-motion replay and hear the analysts.

"And then you say, 'Oh, I guess they got it right,'" Kohn said.

Before his termination, Lloyd had been disciplined eight times as of 2010, according to his personnel record. His violations ranged from submitting a false official report and failing to notify a dispatcher of a change in status, to failing to honor a subpoena and three incidents of failure to safeguard department property. None involved excessive use of force.