NYC: Racial Beating Updates
Bob Witanek
Posted: Michael Novick <mnovi...@igc.apc.org>
June 5, 1996
N.Y. City Police Sergeant to Answer Questions in Long
Island Racial Beating
By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
[N] EW YORK -- A New York City police sergeant has
agreed to answer questions on Wednesday from Suffolk County
detectives in the racially charged beating of a black man outside
a Westhampton Beach nightclub, law enforcement officials said on
Tuesday.
The sergeant, David Reiss, is a friend of Constantine
Chronis, the New York City detective arrested in the
beating. But Reiss' lawyer, who was appointed on
Tuesday by his union, said the sergeant did not
participate in the attack and was not even in
Westhampton Beach at the time. Suffolk County officials
declined to say why they wanted to question Reiss.
More than 100 New York City police officers have been
questioned by Internal Affairs investigators in the
inquiry into the attack on Shane Daniels, who was beaten
into a coma over the Memorial Day weekend. But Reiss, who
works in Brooklyn, is the first police officer to be
questioned by Suffolk County officials since the arrest
of Chronis, law enforcement officials said.
His interview with Suffolk detectives comes as
prosecutors and police officials try to sort through
conflicting accounts of the events leading up to the
bludgeoning of Daniels. Friends of Daniels who
witnessed the attack were questioned for a second time
on Tuesday; a person present during the session who
requested anonynmity said they identified photographs of
three people who were in the parking lot with
Chronis at the time of the beating.
One of the men they identified was Austin Offen, who
surrendered to the police on Monday.
The case is to go to a grand jury on Wednesday, and
Chronis is to appear at a preliminary court hearing.
New York City's police commissioner, Howard Safir,
released stricter departmental guidelines on Tuesday
for officers drinking off duty or who witness off-duty
lawbreaking or misconduct by fellow officers. But Safir's
Internal Affairs investigators are not sure whether the
attack began as a simple bar brawl or was racially
motivated. Daniels is black, Chronis is white and friends
of Daniels have said Chronis and people with him made
racial slurs during the beating.
Chronis has been held in the Suffolk County jail in
Riverhead since he was taken into custody on Sunday in
the beating of Daniels. Although investigators
initially said they thought that other police officers
were involved, none have been arrested. Only Chronis has
been charged in the attack.
Reiss' lawyer, George Cerrone, said the sergeant "knows
Detective Chronis, he worked with him five years ago."
"He considers him a friend," Cerrone said. "But he
wasn't out there in the Hamptons. He was at home with
his family."
Since the attack, the condition of Daniels has slowly
improved. He emerged from his coma this week, although
Dr. George Tyson, chairman of the neurology department
at University Hospital in Stony Brook, N.Y., said the
next 10 to 14 days would be crucial. Tyson said it would
be weeks before he could determine the extent of any
brain damage, or whether Daniels would remember anything
about the attack.
Copyright 1996 The New York Times Company
=================================
Posted: Ronnie Dadone <dad...@chesco.com>
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/ny-cop-arrested.html
> June 4, 1996
>
> Witness to Long Island Racial Beating Has Felony >
Record
>
> By DAN BARRY
>
> [N] EW YORK -- As Suffolk County authorities
> continued on Monday to prepare their case
> against the New York City police officer charged >
in the clubbing of a young man in eastern Long
> Island last week, a man who was with the officer >
on that night of violence has emerged as a key
> witness.
>
> The witness, Austin Offen, who is expected to
> testify before a grand jury in the case, has had >
previous encounters with the law, including a
> felony conviction for beating up an off-duty New >
York City police officer in a Queens fast-food
> restaurant in 1991.
>
> Offen has offered to testify without immunity
> about the Memorial Day weekend night that he and >
three other men -- including the officer,
> Detective Constantine Chronis -- drove 90
> minutes east to the Club Marakesh in Westhampton >
Beach. There, the police said, they drank and
> got into some minor scuffles that, hours later, >
were overshadowed by bloody brawling in a
> parking lot across the street from the club.
> That confrontation culminated with the clubbing >
of Shane Daniels, 21, of Riverhead, who remained >
in critical condition on Monday night.
>
> The police have said that members of Chronis'
> group, who were all white, yelled racial slurs
> at a group of black men including Daniels and
> his friends.
>
> Offen, 25, a community college student from
> Floral Park, N.Y., has been under police
> scrutiny before. Early one morning in March
> 1991, when he was 20 years old and living in
> Queens, Offen and another man, William Degel,
> were reportedly harassing employees in a White
> Castle restaurant in Queens.
>
> When an off-duty police officer intervened,
> Offen hit the man repeatedly in the face,
> causing serious injuries that required surgery
> and several months to heal.
>
> Two months later, while the assault case was
> pending, Offen was charged with criminal
> mischief for throwing a garbage can through the >
window of a Manhattan bar called the Iguana
> Club.
>
> In March 1992, he pleaded guilty to the mischief >
charge, a misdemeanor, and was given a
> conditional discharge. Several months later, in >
November, he pleaded guilty to assaulting the
> off-duty officer, Edwin Buskirk, and was given
> five years' probation. That assault, which was
> reported on Monday in Newsday, is now the focus >
of a pending civil lawsuit, according to
> Buskirk's lawyer, Albert Gaudelli.
>
> In 1993, Offen's companion in the assault case, >
Degel, was charged with three other men in a
> credit-card fraud ring. During the federal
> investigation of the credit-card case, court
> records show, investigators were trying to
> convince Offen to testify against the
> defendants, including Degel. Those same records >
show that in conversations that were
> tape-recorded, a Secret Service agent threatened >
to charge Offen in the case if he did not
> cooperate, and testify against the defendants.
>
> According to the documents, the agent, Thomas
> Nasiatka, was recorded telling Offen that
> "although you technically did not do it, you are >
going to be arrested and you're going to have to >
go to trial."
>
> In those same recordings, Offen indicated a
> strong reluctance about cooperating, and told
> the agent that he no longer had anything to do
> with Degel. It could not be learned on Monday
> night whether Offen testified in the case. Degel >
was also convicted, but his sentence could not
> be learned on Monday night.
>
> At the Suffolk County district attorney's office >
in Riverhead on Monday, three friends of Daniels >
-- Vincent Briggs, Mandel Pettus and Jamie
> DeGregorio -- were escorted into a meeting with >
prosecutors by their lawyer, Michael Hardy. In
> describing the events of that night, they have
> already told investigators that a group of white >
men started the fight, in part by yelling out
> racial slurs. Briggs and Pettus have identified >
Chronis as the man who beat Daniels in the head >
with a tempered-steel anti-theft device, while
> another man held witnesses at bay with a gun.
>
> But a third acquaintance of the victim has told >
investigators that Chronis was the one holding
> the gun, while another man beat Daniels.
>
> Meanwhile, Mr. Offen's lawyer, Dominic A.
> Barbara of Garden City, N.Y., has maintained
> that four white men -- Offen, Chronis and two
> companions named Vinnie and Frank -- wound up
> splitting up in pairs to battle a large group of >
black men in two simultaneous fights in the
> parking lot. Offen never uttered any racial
> epithets, his lawyer said, and was part of the
> fight that included neither Chronis nor Daniels. >
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