A police officer fired for assaulting a shackled prisoner stands to get his job back under a ruling by the Civil Service Commission.

“I’m very happy,” Clay Griffin, a 17-year veteran, said this morning after reading the three-member panel’s ruling.

City Attorney Nancy Thomas said this morning she did not know whether the city would appeal. If so, the case would go to Warren County Circuit Court.

The four-page decision was issued late Wednesday afternoon. It was signed by all three commissioners, Chairman Joe Graham, Clyde Harris and Janice Carstafhnur and followed a day-long hearing last week.

It reverses the termination decision and, instead, suspends Griffin without pay for six months.The panel called firing Griffin “excessive discipline.”

Griffin, 42, had been terminated from the Vicksburg Police Department for taking Joseph Parson, 27, being held as a suspect for accessory to robbery, from a holding cell and assaulting him on Jan. 26.

Represented by his attorneys, Travis T. Vance Jr., Dan McIntosh and Richard Dean of Vicksburg, Griffin said during the hearing that the assault escalated from an attempt to “correct” Parson over his use of language that included sexually explicit talk about Griffin’s wife.

The patrolman, who had been assigned to escort prisoners, reported the assault himself, saying he removed Parson from a holding cell, pushed him against a wall and tried to grab him by his arms and shoulders inside the building that houses the police department and municipal court.

Police Chief Tommy Moffett ordered an investigation by the internal affairs office, and investigator Larry Burns interviewed Parson and other prisoners in the cell at the time.

Griffin’s report and the results of the investigation differed on two main points – whether Griffin struck Parson and whether Griffin choked Parson, Burns testified. Parson said Griffin choked him against the wall using his forearm.

Moffett said an internal investigation showed Griffin’s action was unacceptable and fired him. The city’s board of mayor and aldermen affirmed that action on Feb. 10.

Parson remains in jail with bond set at $50,000, records show. Griffin has been working as an E-911 dispatcher.

Moffett stood by his decision. “As a police chief I have a job to do; I have decisions to make,” he said. “I made the decision. I feel it was proper and correct. I don’t believe we or anyone else should condone a police officer’s assaulting a prisoner or a police officer’s breaking the law to carry out his job. The Civil Service Commission had its decision to make and I had mine to make.”

In his appeal, Griffin argued that the city’s decision to fire him was not “in good faith and for good cause.”

The commission said it was modifying the city board’s decision despite finding that it was made “in good faith and for good cause.”

The commission said it considered “the testimony relative to tenure and past performance” of Griffin and “the body of testimony relating to the charges and regulation” he was accused of violating.

Griffin was charged by the city with about seven policy violations, including “willful and wanton brutality or cruelty to a prisoner or one under arrest or sentence, provided the act was not necessarily done lawfully in self-defense or to protect the lives of others, or to prevent the escape of a person lawfully in custody.”

The other provisions of the order are for Griffin to obtain proof that he has completed an anger-management program at his own cost and that “it shall be within the sole discretion of the chief of police as to what position (Griffin) is placed in upon his return from his suspension.”

“When I left there, I gave 110 percent and when I go back I’m going to give 110 percent,” Griffin said, adding that he plans to continue to work as a dispatcher until his suspension ends, about Aug. 10.

City officials have 30 days to decide whether to appeal the commission ruling.