RUTLAND, Vermont - July 2, 2010 - Rutland City and four of its police officers are being sued by a man who was shot multiple times with a crowd control device while he was shackled in police custody.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Rutland on Friday names former Rutland officer Michael Nesshoever as well as active officers Justin Souza, Seth Richardson and Kenneth Mosher as defendants along with Michael Miller, a deputy at the Rutland County Sheriff’s Department.

Those officers all appear in videotapes recorded during the early morning hours of New Year’s Day inside the holding cell area of the city’s Police Department.

In the videos, Nesshoever can be seen using a pepperball gun - a device much like a paintball gun that is designed for crowd dispersal - on Jamek Hart, a 24-year-old man who police arrested for disorderly conduct.

Hart, who was in a holding cell with his hands and legs shackled, was hit multiple times with pepperballs.

While Nesshoever was the only officer who fired the device, the other officers are named as defendants for failure to intervene, according to the lawsuit.