- History - NYPD -
- - -
The dead man's eye followed you across the room.
The surreal color picture had been
blown up and placed on an easel in the
back of the courtroom. In death,
Anthony Baez seemed to study us.
The eye told the tale of his death.
Police Officer Francis X. Livoti is charged with
choking Baez to death. The cop chose not to return
the dead stare. He glanced once, just to be sure the
eye could not see him, then looked down and
studied his hands.
The prosecutor showed the autopsy photograph as
evidence of Baez' choking death. The dead man's
eyelid was held open by a pair of fingers in yellow
gloves. In death, Baez was still gasping. There were
little red explosions, called petechial hemorrhages, on
the edge of the eye.
"Do you see petechia in asthma cases," the
prosecutor asked the witness, referring to the cause
the defense cites for Baez' death.
"Almost never," replied Charles Hirsch, the city's
chief medical examiner.
From the large windows in the Bronx courtroom you
could see a great spectacle simmering in the streets
below. The city was getting ready for baseball. There
had been talk at this hour that playoff games would
be delayed because a player had spit in the face of
an umpire, another uniformed authority figure in blue.
The player was forgiven, at least for now, and the
games were played.
In this building, visible from home plate at Yankee
Stadium, a cop is on trial because he is alleged to
have choked a man whose football accidentally hit
his police cruiser. Now, forgiveness is all but
impossible.
Livoti's supporters - his lawyer, the PBA, his fellow
officers at the 46th Precinct - claimed the case
would be won on medical evidence. But the other
day Dr. Dominic DiMaio, a former city medical
examiner, took the stand for Livoti. He is a walking
non sequitur, not unlike Casey Stengel in his most
lucid moments. The judge asked DiMaio to leave.
He did, and his nonsensical testimony was stricken
from the record.
Livoti is to take the stand in his own defense today.
It is his last best shot.
Sport in general, and the Yankees in particular, are
enjoyable because they keep reality away. Even on
their worst day, the Yankees are easier to stomach
than autopsy photographs.
George Steinbrenner says he wants to leave the
Bronx because of crime, and this case is unwittingly
his argument in microcosm. Crime has fallen some,
but it would fall a lot more, experts agree, if people
respected instead of suspected the cops who patrol
the Bronx. If Livoti goes unpunished, the people will
argue that there is no justice. Once you lose order,
who cares about baseball.
This is a win both the Bronx and the city need.
On the eve of Livoti's testimony, the prosecution
called an amazing rebuttal witness. Livoti's expert
witnesses had insisted Baez died of an acute asthma
attack after being arrested. The prosecution
answered with Hirsch. Every year, you could fill
Yankee Stadium with his office's work.
He pointed to bruises in a photograph of the dead
man's neck. They are choke marks.
"Probably a minute or more of constant pressure,"
Hirsch said. "They were caused by a forceful
compression."
It is rare for a city medical examiner to take the stand
against a cop. But a medical examiner is useless to
the city if he is afraid of the truth. Hirsch said it again,
and again, nine different ways. Anthony Baez died of
asphyxia caused by pressure to his neck and chest.
At most, asthma may have contributed to the death,
but it was not the cause, Hirsch said.
"Could someone without asthma have expired with
these same injuries?" the prosecutor asked.
"Absolutely. Mr. Baez had perfectly healthy lungs."
There is no jury, and that is good for Livoti. His case
would not play to an audience. The judge who will
decide the outcome has heard one cop break the
blue wall of silence and contradict Livoti's fellow
cops. He has heard one mumbling doctor and
ordered him off the stand, and heard from a precise,
articulate medical examiner. There isn't a cough of
asthma in Livoti's story.
Now we will hear from the cop, a man some say has
swaggered through his professional life with a
clenched fist and a curse on his lips. Still, some cops
want to call him a hero. He is idolized by his union. It
is odd, but Francis X. Livoti, suspect, is worse than
some of the most despicable characters who play
across the street from the Bronx courthouse.
Original Story Date: 10/02/96
- - -
Hizzoner's silent shame
The lies can end today in the Bronx, where a
single judge can save the NYPD and the
borough. A nest of perjury has been uncovered in a
homicide case against a cop.
Rudy Giuliani, as a young prosecutor,
made his name putting lying cops in
jail. But he has said nothing about
Police Officer Francis X. Livoti. His
silence is deafening, and arguably the
wrong message to the worst of the
city's police officers.
As he ranted once again about bail for an accused
cop killer, most of the city was focused on Livoti, an
accused civilian killer.
Anthony Rivers and Livoti are charged with the same
crime, criminally negligent homicide. They both have
terrible records of violence. They both have no
respect for the court. The cop once threatened to kill
a judge.
Which crime puts society more at risk? The wife
abuser who breaks a mirror on which Officer
Vincent Guidice falls, or the police officer who
breaks Anthony Baez? Why is the mayor screaming
about one accused killer being freed on bail and not
making any noise at all about the other?
Doesn't he realize that cops who kill innocent,
law-abiding citizens put all cops in jeopardy? Is the
mayor advocating selective prosecution?
Surely, this silence has nothing to do with the dubious
relationship between Livoti and Louis Anemone, the
Mace-spraying chief of the department. The cop and
chief are said to be blood relatives. Anemone
described Livoti in heroic terms after Baez' untimely
and questionable demise. So many questions were
raised at Livoti's trial for the death of the 29-year-old
man that the judge said the proceeding was awash in
a nest of perjury.
If there was an attempt to circumvent the truth in this
case, how high did it go? After Livoti's lawyer said
there was a clear discrepancy in the testimony of
cops, Judge Gerald Sheindlin replied, "That's putting
it gently. There is a terrible conflict."
Many of the lies that were Livoti's defense have been
clearly disproved. As Sheindlin agreed during closing
arguments, Baez died not of asthma, but with
asthma.
Then Livoti's lawyer, Marshall Trager, admitted that
his client may have choked Baez while breaking up a
family touch football game. Trager said that even if
Baez died from "neck compression" the death was
"not the result of criminal intent." The lawyer had
misstated the law, and the judge corrected him.
"It's not intent," Sheindlin said, pointing out that
"intent" is not part of this homicide charge. The law,
125.10 of the New York State penal code reads: "A
person is guilty of criminally negligent homicide when
with criminal negligence, he causes the death of
another person."
The cop and his lawyer thought that a single judge
would be easier than a Bronx jury. Traditionally,
judges tend to side with cops in these matters. But
unless you count the football that bounced harmlessly
off Livoti's cruiser, there was no weapon in this case.
The judge isn't looking for a trapdoor. He and his
wife, Judy Sheindlin, a tough Family Court judge, are
two of the city's best. You do not lie in the Sheindlin
household. Her book about her career, released this
year, is called, "Don't Pee On My Leg and Tell Me
It's Raining."
As soon as Sheindlin renders his decision this
morning, Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson
should begin untangling the nest of perjury.
Another nest, meanwhile, is already being
assembled. The mayor has put himself right at the
center of the Guidice case. That cop bled to death
after falling on a mirror. In the Bronx, prosecutors
and detectives, who are afraid to talk for fear of
being crushed by Rudy Rage, say they believe the
criminally negligent homicide case against Rivers has
been screwed up. And the mayor's mouth may even
allow the suspect to walk, they argue.
There are two sets of investigative reports in that
case, they said. The police interview files, called
DD5's, are typed up by the investigating detectives.
The first set was filed after they interviewed the cops
in the apartment with Guidice. Then the cops, who
are witnesses, changed the details, the investigators
say, to bolster the mayor's argument that Guidice's
death was an intentional murder. The cops were
interviewed again and a second set of DD5's was
typed up and put in the case file.
Both sets will be turned over to Rivers' defense
attorney as part of the discovery process. The
conflict can only help the defense.
And that is why you hear the constant braying from
City Hall about this case. The mayor knows what is
coming. But it doesn't explain his silence in the Livoti
case. A conviction here will say a lot about cops and
equal justice in the Bronx.
Original Story Date: 10/07/96
- - -
Do Job on Justice
There was a day last year when they first
brought Francis Livoti to court as a defendant.
He did not want to go through the metal detector at
the main entrance.
Sorry, said the court officer, these are the rules.
But I'm On The Job, Livoti had said in
the capital-letter tone that a police Job
comes with. Livoti wanted to walk into
the courthouse as a police officer,
instead of a common criminal
defendant — one of the "skells" so
despised by the cops.
Everybody has to go through the metal detector, the
court officer insisted.
Livoti stormed away, walking around to the other
side of the building until he found an entrance where
people recognized his stature.
Who could blame Francis Livoti for believing that he
had privileges? A few years ago, in that very
courthouse, he had threatened to kill a judge and a
witness who had annoyed him. He had, it was said,
broken a man's jaw over next to nothing. A dozen
times, members of the public had complained that he
was brutal, rude, trouble.
He had even shoved a lieutenant.
With powerful patrons in the Police Department, not
once did Livoti catch any trouble — until he got
annoyed when a football hit his patrol car, and a man
named Anthony Baez ended up dead.
But even as Livoti endured a criminal trial, time has
proven him entirely right about his privileges.
Yesterday morning, Bronx Supreme Court Justice
Gerald Sheindlin declared: "The defendant is not on
trial for being a bad cop."
As a matter of fact, and law, that was exactly why
Livoti was on trial.
He put Baez in a choke hold that violated police
regulations and training, and Baez died.
Livoti's status was also why the judge railed against
Livoti: "Nest of perjury . . . demeaning . . . insulting .
. . rude . . . confrontational . . . raw disrespect."
Theatrics.
Backstage, Livoti was personally rescued by the
judge — not only in yesterday's not-guilty verdict,
but the reinterpretation of the testimony of the most
devastating witness against him, the chief medical
examiner of New York.
Dr. Charles Hirsch had left no room for doubt about
what killed Anthony Baez: "The compression of his
neck, in my opinion, is the dominant cause of his
death," Hirsch had testified.
The prosecutors sat down. So did Livoti's lawyer.
The cop was drowning in evidence.
"Now I have some questions," said Sheindlin.
The judge drew up a complicated scenario that we
can describe only as Choke Hold-Interruptus: Baez
was put in a choke hold, but was only knocked
unconscious. He was still alive and woke up to
resume his struggle with the police officers who were
cuffing him. A cop leaned on his back. The
compression caused Baez to have an asthma attack
and die.
"Is that consistent with the evidence that you
observed during autopsy?" asked Sheindlin.
"Yes sir," said Hirsch, "it could be."
Sheindlin had what he needed, and so did Livoti. The
next morning, the police officer did not take the
witness stand in his own defense. Why should he? If
Baez had died from a choke hold, Livoti was guilty.
If he died from compression of his chest, that was
unfortunate, but not a crime.
So Sheindlin had managed to get the medical
examiner to say that Baez — after being choked for
"a minute or more" — might have been knocked
out, then awoke to fight again. And while the medical
examiner clearly did not believe that chain of events,
the judge used it to support the testimony of two
shaky witnesses.
"The court," said Sheindlin yesterday, "cannot ignore
the fact that Dr. Hirsch's opinion is consistent with
and supports, in important areas, the testimony of
Sgt. Monahan and Police Officer Erotokritou."
Of course, not William Monahan, not Mario
Erotokritou, not one of the six cops on the scene —
not one — said they saw Livoti's hands on Baez'
neck. He had been choked for "an interval measuring
a minute or more," Hirsch said.
No cop saw Livoti choke Baez for a minute. But
Baez' father did and said so.
Livoti sat in court yesterday, eyes down, as the judge
rambled on for 10 pages. At the last page, a
bodyguard carrying a walkie-talkie suddenly
appeared at Livoti's table.
'I do find, based on the quality of the evidence
presented, that the people have failed to establish the
guilt of the defendant beyond a . . . " Livoti jumped
to his feet. Before the words "reasonable doubt" and
"not guilty" were uttered by the judge, before the first
wail from the victim's family, the police officer was
out the side door and gone. It was perfectly
rehearsed.
Original Story Date: 10/08/96
- - -
For two painful years, since the death of their
son Anthony at the hands of a hothead cop
named Francis Livoti, Ramon and Iris Baez have
anticipated this day.
The hardworking couple raised six
children in a small house on Cameron
Place in a rundown section of the
Bronx. Known throughout the area,
they are leaders of the Second
Christian Church and the kind of
people who provided free food each Christmas to
hundreds of their less fortunate neighbors at a nearby
restaurant, owned by one of their relatives.
The Baezes had faith that justice would prevail, that
the senseless killing of their son for the absurd crime
of questioning Livoti's order to stop playing touch
football with his brothers could not possibly go
unpunished. Throughout the three-week trial Iris
Baez, who sat in the front row of the courtroom,
read her Bible at every opportunity.
Then, yesterday morning, the Baezes' faith in blind
justice was strangled as quickly as was the last
breath of their 29-year-old son.
In a watershed verdict destined to become as
notorious as the Michael Stewart case was more
than a decade ago, Bronx Supreme Court Justice
Gerald Sheindlin, after harshly criticizing Livoti's
conduct in arresting Anthony Baez, declared the cop
not guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the
nonjury trial.
His decision sent a chilling and unmistakable signal to
the city's 4 million black and Latino residents: New
York City cops can get away with murder, especially
when their victims are nonwhite.
He concluded that Livoti used a banned choke hold
to arrest and subdue "an otherwise decent and
hardworking young man," and that Baez' death was
caused by asphyxiation, not asthma as the defense
had claimed. But Sheindlin ruled, in a nutshell, that
prosecutors had botched the case and failed to
prove guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt."
Even Ruben Diaz, the conservative minister and
long-time law-and-order supporter of Mayor
Giuliani, could not contain his outrage. "This is
something terrible," he said. "It's saying, 'Kill
whoever you want, we will set you free.' "
For those of us who have carefully chronicled so
many of these kinds of deaths over the years — from
Stewart, the graffiti painter beaten, hogtied and
suffocated while being arrested by six transit cops in
1983, to Eleanor Bumpurs, the 66-year-old woman
killed by shotgun blast in 1984, to Federico Pereira,
the petty thief who suffocated while being subdued
by four cops in Queens in 1991 — it is amazing how
each and every time cops brought to trial are found
not guilty.
The law of averages should have dictated a few
convictions by now.
But when it comes to cops, neither probability nor a
reasonable reading of the law seems to matter. Our
legal system has taken to treating police as a
separate, protected class of citizens. It requires a
much higher burden of proof to establish their guilt.
Take Sheindlin's 10-page decision. It is legal mumbo
jumbo of the highest order. Faced with the
undeniable fact that Livoti had applied a choke hold
to arrest Baez, Sheindlin knew that if the choke hold
caused the man's death, Livoti was criminally
negligent.
The judge opted for another theoretical scenario: The
choke hold made Baez "temporarily unconscious,"
but the victim regained consciousness and put up a
fierce struggle with Livoti and his fellow cops. Then,
while being handcuffed facedown on the pavement,
Baez had an asthma attack and suffocated.
Thus, according to the judge, the choke hold had
nothing to do with Baez' death. This scenario,
Sheindlin said, corresponds to the testimony of two
cops on the scene. The judge neglected to say those
cops claimed Livoti never applied a choke hold to
Baez. In other words, they were lying under oath.
The judge also discounted the eyewitness testimony
of several Baez family members.
"My son was all alone when Livoti had him in that
choke hold," Ramon Baez said in tears yesterday. "I
told Livoti that Anthony had asthma. He wouldn't
listen."
The hothead cop is not that far removed from the
judge who set him free. One used a badge and brute
force against an innocent man. The other used a
black robe and slick words. The message left many
New Yorkers in shock.
Last night, the Rev. Heriberto Lopez and other
family supporters called a huge protest for 5 p.m.
today at the Bronx County Courthouse, just hours
before the Yankees-Orioles playoff game is
scheduled to start down the street.
Original Story Date: 10/08/96
- - -
They bury the police officer today, and although
he can be eulogized as a fine cop, he cannot
be held up as a hero. Police Officer Brian Jones died
a vigilante, and his death should scare
the city as much as Anthony Baez'.
Several young men, some of them on
parole, stood outside the Urena
bodega in East New York yesterday.
A sticker inside the store with a gun sight says,
"Duck Down."
The Sunday shootout is all the talk of this corner of
Miller Ave., which they call Killer Miller. A few said
they were playing dice against a wall when three men
approached with guns. They hit the ground when the
shooting started. "These guys didn't have their
badges out, and they were just arguing," said a man,
who identified himself as Skip. "Then they pulled
their guns. So now I guess we got to worry about
off-duty cops coming down on us."
Two of the men were cops. The third may have been
a cop's brother. He has a gun conviction. In the early
quicksand of this story, the city focused on the man
shot by the off-duty cops and then bullet fragments.
All information on police is now filtered through City
Hall, where the spokespersons have the credibility of
so many alleged street witnesses.
The bigger story here has nothing to do with a shot
parolee or bullet fragments. When city residents are
questioning the brutality of police, we now have
police vigilantes. Perhaps they only wanted to rattle a
mugger or throw him a beating.
"I been arrested enough times to know this is not
how you grab somebody," said another young man in
a Chicago Bulls cap, who gave his name as Johnson.
"What? Cops don't know how to dial 911."
How was this going to work exactly? Were the cops
going to come down and smack the guy and leave?
Or did they hope to live through a shootout and go
back down the street to watch television? Have they
done this before? This reminds me of that old Clint
Eastwood/Dirty Harry movie, "Magnum Force,"
where cops killed the bad guys instead of arresting
them.
But many witnesses claim the cops did not identify
themselves and drew their guns first. Jean Quarterly,
who was upstairs, says she saw one of the cops
shoot Jones in the back of the head. There are also
lots of bullet holes in the elm trees.
It is sad when any cop dies. But this does not sound
like a line-of-duty death. People who say that shame
the memory of Ray Cannon, the last Brooklyn cop to
be shot to death.
We cannot have cops taking the law into their own
hands. Let's pretend everything the police public
information types say is true. Antoine Windley
robbed Damon Thomas, a cousin of Officer Mark
Thomas, who probably shot his friend Jones in the
head. Let's even assume Windley drew his gun first.
The shooting would be a "good" one. But even in the
best scenario, the cops were living dangerously.
"Cops can't just show up and start a shootout,"
Johnson said. "How did they even know they had the
right guy?"
What to believe? Alleged witnesses and politicians
offer stories to fit their agendas. The mayor says we
should wait for the cops to sift through the evidence.
As his reelection centers on the crime issue, we can
probably not trust him to tell us the whole truth. That
is why he has silenced the cops. But after eyewitness
accounts were changed in the Vincent Guidice case,
"a nest of perjury" in the Francis Livoti matter, and
finally, this questionable firefight, the NYPD is in free
fall.
We want off-duty cops to make arrests. But there is
no acceptable police work in this case. Say what you
want about Officer Peter Del Debbio and his friendly
fire case, but he thought he was trying to save lives.
Off-duty cops can only take action when there is
grave danger to the public. They cannot practice
vigilante justice.
Brian Jones, they say, was a good cop. But when he
left his cousin's apartment to show off his toughness,
he damaged the credibility of the entire Police
Department.
Like Livoti's acquittal, this is a mistake that
endangers every cop. Oddly, these should be the
best of times for the NYPD. The halving of the city's
murder rate is numbing. Maybe New York City isn't
over.
But cops who choke young men to death for playing
touch football and who engage in illegal gunfights
with their neighbors are going to be the death of the
NYPD.
Original Story Date: 10/18/96
- - -
By JOHN MARZULLI Daily News Staff Writer
An off-duty police officer was charged with
felony assault yesterday after she punched out
a cop who had stopped her for a traffic violation on
Staten Island, authorities said.
Officer Isabel Nieves, 28, has been suspended from
the force without pay.
Nieves, a seven-year veteran assigned to the 63d
Precinct in Brooklyn, was pulled over about 8:30
a.m. for "failing to obey a traffic signal,' said police
spokeswoman Carmen Melendez.
Nieves identified herself as a cop to Officer Frank
Wessels but was not carrying identification. A
dispute ensued between Nieves and Wessels, and
she tried to leave the scene. When Wessels tried to
stop her, she punched him in the face.
- - -
There was a foreboding scene from the Livoti
case. The drama tells us a lot about where the
Bronx is headed.
At the moment of the verdict,
helmeted cops stood around parked
television trucks on the Grand
Concourse, watching live feeds from
the courtroom. When they heard,
many cops clapped and cheered.
Cops at Yankee Stadium did the same thing. They
are a tribe, so perhaps their jingoism is forgivable.
But the cops who applauded the acquittal of Francis
Livoti in uniform cheered their own defeat. Most
good cops — the ones Anthony Baez' father said he
still believes in — predict a dire future: A win for
Livoti was a loss for the NYPD.
"People are going to hate us again," said a Bronx cop
who has made as many arrests as Livoti without
having any civilian complaints lodged against him.
"Everyone is going to look at us as killer cops.
Criminals who don't need any excuse to shoot a cop
in the Bronx now have an excuse — Livoti."
Most cops believed Livoti would be convicted. He is
every bit the embarrassment that Michael Dowd
was, and not everyone in his precinct, the 46th,
would even care if he were jailed. Eight months
before Baez' killing, someone added Livoti's name to
a list of cops suspended for corruption. By then,
Livoti had 14 Civilian Complaint Review Board
complaints against him. This is not graffiti on the
Grand Concourse. This is what Livoti's tribe thought
of him.
After the hothead saw his name, Livoti shoved his
lieutenant. Later, he bragged that he had called Louis
Anemone, then the chief of patrol, for help. Instead
of being suspended, Livoti was given a command
discipline.
"Listen," Bronx Supreme Court Justice Gerald
Sheindlin explained to Daily News reporter Jorge
Fitz-Gibbon after his verdict, "if I was going to give a
cop a break, it wouldn't be Livoti."
The only consistent story in the trial is the medical
evidence. Every doctor saw neck bruises and
petechiae, the telltale signs of strangulation, and the
blood gases that show Baez had been suffocated.
Only the dead man's father saw the choke hold.
None of the cops with Livoti admitted seeing it
because choke holds are illegal.
This is a staggering detail. The cops were the only
witnesses whose testimony was inconsistent with the
medical evidence. But the judge chose to believe
them:
"Unless they were all in this grand conspiracy so that
even all the details coincided with one another —
and they are the greatest actors I have seen in my
whole life — then their testimony has to be the truth
in major respects. I don't accept everything they
said, because I had a feeling some things were being
left out."
None of the cops saw the choke hold, but they all
saw Baez alive afterward. Their selective vision
forced the judge to free Livoti. Now, if this was
Officer Friendly, who got in trouble one time, in a
tough spot, perhaps the judge could be allowed to
stumble his way to justice. But Livoti, a recidivist,
created this whole situation, the judge said. And that
is why it bothered Sheindlin to free a non-innocent
cop on the Bronx and the NYPD. We have been
arguing since the huge corruption scandal in
Brooklyn's 77th Precinct 10 years ago this fall that
cops who brutalize civilians and steal kill other cops.
The cheering for Livoti should have stopped long
ago. Anemone, now chief of the department, creates
dangerous cops like Livoti. On Feb. 1, 1995 — two
months after Baez' choking death — Anemone
spoke of Livoti at a public hearing of the Bronx
Borough Service Cabinet.
"This is an officer that has been very active in solving
community problems, doing the kind of work that the
citizenry of the city and certainly this country are
looking for," he said.
Really?
Attacking quality-of-life crimes is great, especially if
you survive them. The mayor has brayed himself
voiceless in the Bronx. With each passing day, he
becomes less a mayor of New York and more the
mayor of the NYPD. Soon he will be left with what
he started with: Staten Island.
He sought to diminish this tragedy by saying he feels
great sympathy for a wounded Bronx family. But this
verdict affects the entire city.
Unfortunately, following this verdict, the hatred will
boil and fester. As the cops cheered, the citizens
jeered.
It is odd, but both sides will share a common
tradition. At funerals, applause is frowned upon.
Original Story Date: 10/09/96
- - -
Shoot tied to fight with drug dealer
By CORKY SIEMASZKO
Daily News Staff Writer
Investigators suspect friendly fire killed an
off-duty housing police officer in Brooklyn on
Sunday night.
Officials said confirmation that a fellow cop's gunfire
was responsible for Brian Jones' death could not be
made until bullet fragments taken from the slain
officer's skull were analyzed.
One law enforcement official said it was likely that
Jones, 27, was killed by friendly fire. A second
official said, "Based on the investigation, we feel that
way."
Jones, a six-year veteran of the housing police, was
off-duty when he was shot while allegedly helping a
cop pal settle a score with a convicted drug dealer,
high-ranking officials said yesterday.
The pal, off-duty Officer Mark Thomas, 25, and a
third cop, Michael Murphy, 29, were suspended
yesterday. Murphy was suspended for failing to tell
detectives interviewing potential witnesses that he is a
cop.
The bloody incident in the crime-ridden East New
York section of Brooklyn involved a face-off with
Antoine Windley, a drug dealer out of jail on a
work-release program.
Windley, 25, was charged yesterday with attempted
murder and weapons possession.
He also was charged with robbery and assault
stemming from an incident in the subway Saturday
that led to the shooting.
That night, Windley allegedly fought and robbed
Thomas' cousin Damien Thomas, 23, in a nearby
subway station.
Damien Thomas told police he had accidentally
bumped into Windley in the Van Siclen Ave. station.
That angered Windley, who missed a No. 3 train he
was trying to catch into Manhattan for a night out,
sources said.
Damien Thomas did not report the incident. But
Sunday night, he was watching the Yankees game in
his apartment with Jones and Thomas when he
looked out the window and spotted Windley at
Miller and Hegeman Aves.
Jones' girlfriend, Barbara Brown, 29, said she was at
her mother's home when Jones called her at 9:30
p.m. Sunday and told her, "I have to take care of
something."
What happened next remains in dispute.
Damien Thomas told cops that his cousin and Jones
went out to talk to Windley. They returned minutes
later and asked him if he was sure Windley was the
man who'd robbed him Saturday.
He said he was, and the officers went back out to
talk with Windley again.
Moments later, shots rang out.
The investigation showed that Windley fired a .357
magnum once during the confrontation, police said.
Jones, who was armed with a 9-mm. pistol, and
Mark Thomas, who was packing a .38-caliber
revolver, fired 20 shots between them.
Windley was shot in the lower leg and taken to
Kings County Hospital.
Mark Thomas has said Windley fired first, law
enforcement sources said. That was corroborated by
at least one other witness yesterday.
Guerline Mazile, 19, who followed the escalating
argument from the bedroom window of her Miller St.
apartment, said she heard Windley tell Jones, " 'I'm
not going to fight you in front of the store, let's go in
the street.' "
Windley then walked "into the street and his back
was turned towards" Jones, she said. Then Windley
"pulled out his gun and said, 'I'm not going to waste
my time fighting,' " and fired.
Another witness, Efraim Marquez, 35, said Jones
was being belligerent with Windley and didn't identify
himself as a cop.
"Nobody knew they were cops until after the
shooting," said Marquez. "The guy who got shot, got
real loud. He was yelling, 'You want to do this,' a
bravado thing."
Marquez said he heard shots and ducked behind a
brick wall. When he looked up again, Mark Thomas
was kneeling over Jones and started screaming,
"He's a cop! He's a cop! Get an ambulance!"
According to a 1987 NYPD Legal Bureau bulletin
outlining the guidelines for off-duty action, an officer
has the authority to take action when there is an
immediate need for the prevention of a crime or the
apprehension of a suspect, the offense is a felony or
misdemeanor and the officer is armed.
Outside New York City, the guidelines are stricter:
The offense must be a felony "involving immediate
danger to human life."
Original Story Date: 10/15/96
- - -
The mother of a woman who was killed by a
police officer during a drunken brawl in a
Washington Heights restaurant has sued the former
cop, the restaurant and the city for $120 million.
The former officer, Frank Speringo, 29, was
sentenced Nov. 1 to 12 years in prison on his
second-degree manslaughter conviction for fatally
shooting Maria Rivas, 26, on Sept. 17, 1995, in Las
Tres Marias restaurant.
Rivas' mother, Nilpida Perez, 45, of Yonkers,
charged in papers filed Wednesday in Manhattan
State Supreme Court that her daughter was a
bystander when Speringo shot her without
provocation or just cause.
Speringo's lawyer Bruce Smirti said at trial that
Rivas' death was the fault of the man who tried to
wrestle the off-duty officer's gun from him.
Assistant Corporation Counsel Lorna Goodman
said, "We would have serious doubt about any
liability on the part of the city, and we would
seriously question a lawsuit where taxpayers have to
pay for the actions of someone in a barroom brawl."
Original Story Date: 12/13/96
- - -
By JOHN MARZULLI
Daily News Staff Writer
The police commander accused of fudging
crime statistics at a South Bronx precinct has
retired with his captain's rank and pension intact, the
Daily News has learned. Capt. Louis Vega, a
30-year veteran, retired during talks between his
lawyers and Police Department prosecutors over a
plea deal, officials said yesterday.
Sources said the department was seeking a guilty
plea from Vega that would have resulted in his
demotion to the rank of lieutenant and the loss of 20
days' pay.
But Vega, who would have agreed to the
suspension, balked at giving up his rank, police
sources said.
Vega, a probationary captain, was charged with
"misclassifying" 29 crime reports between July and
September 1996 after auditors found that complaints
originally filed as felonies were downgraded to
misdemeanors.
If found guilty at a department hearing, Vega could
have faced dismissal. He filed for retirement Nov. 9.
Police Commissioner Howard Safir said in a
statement, "Captain Vega's retirement closes an
unfortunate chapter for the NYPD, but it should send
a clear message that we will not tolerate deception."
Original Story Date: 01/03/97
- - -
By MAUREEN FAN and MIGUEL GARCILAZO Daily
News Staff Writers
Let drug buyers beware - that dope dealer
could be a cop. Seventy-two people were
arrested during a four-day "reverse sting" operation
in Washington Square Park, where the people
peddling marijuana were actually undercover
officers.
The Washington Square operation, which began last
Friday and ended Monday, was the first time the
police used a reverse drug sting to target prospective
drug clients, authorities said.
"It sends a very clear message that we're going to
clean out the parks," said Police Commissioner
Howard Safir. "If you come to the parks to buy
drugs, especially Washington Square Park, the
probability is you'll be buying drugs from a police
officer and you'll get arrested."
The Drug Free Parks initiative - a new plan to halt
the spread of drugs in city parks and playgrounds -
will include extra police patrols and sting operations.
Safir said the Washington Square sting was so
successful that police officials announced the
expansion to include six more parks outside
Manhattan. An infamous outdoor pot supermarket,
Washington Square was recently targeted for a
major, high-publicity crackdown.
Of the 72 arrested, more than half live outside
Manhattan and come from all walks of life, including
a college professor, students and a freelance
photographer. Their identities were not available.
Safir added that the department had a legal opinion
from the state attorney general saying the operation
stood on solid legal grounds.
"We sell [customers] real marijuana but we take
precautions to make sure none of the marijuana gets
out of our sight or ingested," he said. "It's only
entrapment if you cause somebody to do something
that they did not intend to do before."
The new anti-drug program's success was
announced at Maria Hernandez Park in Brooklyn,
which was dedicated to a Brooklyn activist who was
shot and killed in 1989 by drug dealers as she tried
to rid her neighborhood of the scourge of drugs.
The city parks targeted for the plan include Lincoln
Terrace Park and Foster Park in Brooklyn; Poe
Park in the Bronx; Markham Playground in Staten
Island, and Linden Park and Rufus King Park in
Queens.
Original Story Date: 102997
- - -
By JOHN MARZULLI
Daily News Staff Writer
A top police commander under investigation for
alleged shady ties to a wealthy gun dealer has
retired with his pension intact after he successfully hid
from probers seeking to serve him with charges
before time ran out.
"He beat us," one disgusted police official told the
Daily News last night.
Deputy Inspector Charles Luisi, a 35-year veteran,
officially left the force at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday —
as Internal Affairs detectives futilely raced the clock
to find him.
Luisi, 58, will now collect a taxable pension of
roughly half his $85,251 salary, and he is also eligible
for a tax-free disability pension previously approved
by a medical panel.
At this point, even if prosecutors bring a case against
Luisi and he is convicted, his pensions are
unaffected. But it was not believed last night that the
district attorney's office intended to pursue matters.
Luisi, the former commander of Manhattan South
detectives and the elite bomb squad, came under a
cloud in October after he took the Fifth Amendment
seven times when questioned in Supreme Court
about thousands of dollars in trips and dinners he
was alleged to have accepted from millionaire gun
dealer Michael Zerin.
A woman suing Zerin for bigamy had charged that
Zerin had used the police connections of his
long-time friend Luisi to have her investigated.
In early November, Luisi put in for retirement -
and, while prosecutors probed the Zerin matter,
NYPD investigators sought to make a departmental
case against him in an unrelated matter involving
Luisi's alleged unauthorized ownership of an
automatic weapon.
They had 30 days to make that case before his
retirement kicked in. They failed.
"We attempted to serve him with charges, but we
were unable to locate him," said Deputy Inspector
Michael Collins, a police spokesman.
"He was very much aware that he was under
surveillance," said one investigator.
Luisi's attorney, Richard Dienst, had no comment last
night.
Original Story Date: 12/07/96
- - -
Union Bigs Indicted
By KEVIN FLYNN, WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
and GREG B. SMITH
Daily News Staff Writers
Federal prosecutors yesterday charged former
transit police union officials with racketeering
and said they are probing signs of similar corruption
in the city's main police union.
The now-defunct transit police union's former
president, its two top lawyers and a key consultant
were charged with looting union funds in kickback
and fraud schemes, acting more like a crime family
than a police union.
Prosecutors charge the four feasted on funds
collected to benefit the 4,300-member union's rank
and file, pocketing $450,000 in kickbacks and
doling out $2 million in Transit Patrolmen's
Benevolent Association business to a prominent law
firm.
With the 13-count indictment, 11 now have been
charged and six have secretly pleaded guilty and
started cooperating with federal investigators probing
the former union. Law enforcement sources said the
cooperators include three former union officials
providing evidence of other scams.
"These charges and guilty pleas paint a sordid picture
of greed and betrayal of trust," said Manhattan U.S.
Attorney Mary Jo White. "Police officers risk their
lives for the benefit of the public every day. That it
was their own elected officials, fellow officers and
lawyers that betrayed them . . . makes these crimes
particularly galling."
Hit with racketeering, bribery and conspiracy
charges were former union President Ron Reale and
James Lysaght and Peter Kramer, partners in the
union law firm of Lysaght, Lysaght & Kramer. Also
charged was union insurance consultant Richard
Hartman, a disgraced former lawyer for the city's
main police union. Jack Jordan, former president of
the now-defunct city housing police union, was
charged with perjury in a separate indictment.
Defense lawyers said the five defendants had done
nothing wrong.
All but Reale have had close relations with the
28,000-member Patrolmen's Benevolent
Association, the main police union that's now the
focus of the continuing probe. "Some of these
tentacles go into the existing PBA," one investigator
said.
The indictment charges that Reale got dozens of
ill-fated 1993 bid for city public advocate. The
contributions helped him qualify for matching public
campaign funds, which Reale allegedly used along
with union funds to reimburse the givers.
An audit by the city Campaign Finance Board found
that more than $50,000 in Reale contributions came
in money orders, ostensibly from dozens of different
people. But many of the money orders came from
the same bank account and bore seemingly identical
handwriting.
The indictment also charged that Reale, former union
Vice President Thomas Zichettello and former union
Treasurer Raymond Montoro pocketed $450,000 in
cash kickbacks from Lysaght, Kramer and Hartman.
In exchange, the union awarded the law firm $2
million in fees to represent rank-and-file members in
everything from house closings to divorce
proceedings. Lysaght and Kramer said they were
"absolutely not guilty."
Original Story Date: 01/23/97
- - -
By JORGE FITZ-GIBBON and JOHN MARZULLI
Daily News Staff Writers
The emotion-charged case of a Bronx cop
acquitted of choking a man to death will be
replayed starting Tuesday in a Police Headquarters
trial room.
Officer Francis Livoti will be fighting to save his job,
while the family of the dead man, Anthony Baez,
says it hopes to find a measure of justice.
Three months ago, Livoti was found not guilty of
criminally negligent homicide in a nonjury trial. The
verdict by Supreme Court Justice Gerald Sheindlin
triggered demonstrations outside the Bronx
courthouse and the 46th Precinct stationhouse,
where Livoti worked.
Legal experts said the administrative trial, which is
open to the public, differs in several key ways from
the criminal case.
"The department has a lot less to prove this time than
in the criminal case," said a law enforcement official,
speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Livoti (left) is charged with using an illegal choke
hold on Baez that contributed to his death. The
department does not have to prove the choke hold
killed Baez. The Police Department banned the use
of choke holds to restrain suspects in 1993.
The burden of proof in an administrative hearing is
51% of the evidence, and hearsay testimony is
allowed. That is less than the
beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard required in
criminal trials.
Police lawyers will not call a sergeant and two cops
who testified they did not see Livoti choke Baez. In
his decision, Sheindlin cited doubt raised by their
testimony.
And in bitter irony, the testimony of Baez' relatives
describing the choke hold may thwart the family's
$48 million wrongful death lawsuit. City lawyers will
argue the Police Department is not responsible for
Livoti's illegal actions.
"The city wants to take the position that because
Livoti violated a rule, they don't have to pay," said
lawyer Susan Karten, who is representing Baez'
widow, Maribel, in the lawsuit. "I think that's
offensive."
For Maribel Baez, a guilty verdict in the
administrative trial, which could cost Livoti his job,
has little meaning.
"It's not going to bring my loss back," she said. "I
want [Livoti] put away. He shouldn't be able to
spend time with his family. To me, justice will be to
lock him up for 15, 20 years."
Livoti is being investigated for federal civil rights
violations. He faces another criminal trial in the Bronx
on assault charges for allegedly slapping and choking
a teen in 1993.
The NYPD and the Bronx district attorney are
reviewing transcripts to determine if other cops who
testified at Livoti's trial committed perjury.
Livoti's lawyer, Stuart London, did not return calls
for comment.
The department trial, expected to last at least two
weeks, will be held before Rae Koshetz, the deputy
police commissioner of trials. Koshetz' finding will be
approved or rejected by Police Commissioner
Howard Safir.
Police prosecutors Allen Fitzer and Sgt. David
Suarez will try to show how Baez, 29, a college
student and security guard, died after a struggle with
Livoti and other cops that began after a tossed
football hit the cop's parked radio car outside the
victim's home in December 1994.
Livoti, a 15-year-veteran and union delegate at the
46th Precinct, was under special supervision by a
patrol sergeant at the time of the fatal confrontation.
He had received 11 civilian complaints alleging
excessive force or verbal abuse, but only one was
substantiated. Known as an aggressive cop, Livoti
once shoved a precinct lieutenant during an argument
but later apologized and was not disciplined.
Sheindlin questioned Livoti's fitness for the job and
said he had no doubt the cop had used a choke hold.
However, Sheindlin believed Baez still was alive after
the hold was released and that other factors — the
victim's acute asthma and compression of his chest
when cops subdued him — also played a part in his
death.
Testimony from Dr. Charles Hirsch, the city's chief
medical examiner, that compression of the victim's
neck contributed to his death will be key to proving
the main charge.
Testimony during the criminal trial by a sergeant and
three cops who said they saw Baez walking after he
was subdued was disputed by another officer, who
said when she arrived on the scene there was no
struggle and the victim was unconscious on the
sidewalk.
Police officials will assign extra cops for security
during the trial and have set aside a dozen seats for
the Baez family and supporters in the fourth-floor
courtroom.
Original Story Date: 01/05/97
- - -
Smarts Most for DA
By JORGE FITZ-GIBBON
Daily News Staff Writer
Two years ago, a wave of corruption charges
rocked a Bronx stationhouse as authorities
alleged a rogue cell of cops had been shaking down
drug dealers.
On Thursday, the scandal at the 48th Precinct could
draw to a quiet close as two cops, both of whom
turned informants, appear in Bronx Supreme
Court for possible plea bargains.
Ten other cops have been acquitted by a judge at
nonjury trials; the misdemeanor conviction of another
was overturned.
Despite 15 indictments, only two cops from the
Cross Bronx Expressway stationhouse have been
convicted and sentenced to jail time.
The two informants, Richard Rivera, 33, of Orange
County, and James Vazquez, 33, of the Bronx, face
burglary, robbery and misconduct charges.
Joe Carrozza, Rivera's lawyer, said his client was hit
with so many charges because he was honest with
prosecutors about the corruption at the precinct.
Vazquez' lawyer, Joseph Garafola, declined
comment.
Lawyers for the other cops are demanding
retribution.
"Rivera and Vazquez sold their souls for 30 pieces of
silver," said Marvin Raskin, the lawyer for John
Lowe, who was acquitted in one case and had his
misdemeanor conviction in another overturned.
"The unfortunate circumstances that brought us to
this point is the fact that the district attorney made his
bed with these two rats," Raskin said.
"The more they lied and got other cops in trouble,
the more they gained," said attorney Stuart London,
who won acquittal for Michael Kalanz despite
Rivera's testimony.
Prosecutors said the extent of the cooperation they
got from Rivera and Vazquez, not the result, will
decide the plea offers, which may be delayed.
"I do not view them as heroes, don't misunderstand
me. They're bad cops," said Barry Kluger, chief
assistant to Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson.
"I asked something very simple. I asked them to
cooperate. I asked them to be truthful. You can't
play Monday morning quarterback."
The investigation began in 1993 when Officer
Timothy Zaccardo was nabbed in Rockland County
on drug charges and began talking to NYPD internal
affairs.
On Aug. 1, 1993, he lured Vazquez and Rivera into
a suspected drug house on E. 182d St., where
investigators allegedly caught them on video tape
pocketing money they found.
Confronted with the tape, Vazquez, and later Rivera,
agreed to wear hidden microphones on duty,
producing 10 tapes that were used as evidence.
One cop, later acquitted of beating a prisoner in a
squad car, bragged on tape that the sergeant driving
the car "did the right thing and took the long way
back to the precinct."
Another cop, also acquitted, joked to Rivera that he
"pummeled" a prisoner so hard with his flashlight that
he broke another officer's finger.
Rivera testified 17 times to grand juries, at Bronx
Supreme Court trials and at department hearings,
while Vazquez testified eight times.
The result: Officer Dwayne Townsend was
sentenced to one year in jail for taking cash from two
suspected drug dealers and Officer Derrick Jackson
received eight weekends in jail for stealing a gun
from a Bronx apartment in 1993.
"Obviously we're disappointed," Kluger said. "But
the risk that they put themselves in by wearing a
body wire and going into that precinct, that's a factor
that has to be taken into consideration."
Tom Leahy, head of the district attorney's rackets
bureau, also said nine cops, including two who
weren't indicted, either resigned or were fired, while
the remaining cops in the probe have department
hearings pending.
"At last count nine police officers have violated their
oath of office and they no longer carry a shield and a
gun in Bronx County," Kluger said. "I still view the
investigation as a success."
Original Story Date: 03/02/97
- - -
Judgement — if not justice — finally has caught
up with rogue cop Francis X. Livoti. A Police
Department court has found him guilty of using an
illegal choke hold that contributed to the death of
Anthony Baez and recommended that he be fired.
Police Commissioner Howard Safir must do just that
— for the sake of the department and the city.
And Safir must act fast. For the clock is ticking. If
Livoti isn't booted before Feb. 26, he will walk away
with his pension after 15 years of (dis)service.
That would be the absolute wrong conclusion to the
tragedy of errors that kept Livoti on the force. He
should never have been a cop. Livoti got away with
murder — he was acquitted of criminal charges. That
must be the last time he beats a rap.
Police brass knew Livoti was a thug. He racked up
11 civilian complaints and even threatened to shoot a
judge. He was so notorious, in fact, that he couldn't
go out on patrol without special supervision. That's a
polite way to say Livoti needed a baby-sitter
because he was a cop who too often crossed the
line.
During his trial on charges of criminally negligent
homicide, Livoti's lawyers insisted asthma killed
Baez, not the choke hold. Judge Gerald Scheindlin
cited a "nest of perjury" in the case, but he acquitted
Livoti anyway.
Thanks to that unfortunate verdict, and the apparent
lies that supported it, the impression grew that a
police officer on trial has little to fear. No matter how
severe his crime, fellow cops will support him.
Fortunately, for both the NYPD and the people of
New York, the department's Deputy Commissioner
for Trials Rae Koshetz untied that disgraceful bond.
She listened to the testimony and found Livoti guilty
of using a choke hold so lethal its use is outlawed by
the NYPD. She insisted that Livoti be fired and that
he lose his pension. No coverup there. No blue wall
of silence.
Now it's up to Safir. The sooner Livoti hits the bricks
the sooner every cop and every citizen will know that
there is no room on the force for brutal, venal or
stupid cops. But Safir must not stop there. Cops like
Livoti must be found and weeded out. It must not
take another death to shake the rotten apples from
the NYPD's tree.
"Police officer" is a title that never should appear
before the name of someone who dishonors the
badge. It is an honor that belongs solely to the
overwhelming majority of cops who do their job —
and do it bravely and with distinction.
2-12-97
- - -
Charged with whipping his son
By BLANCA M. QUINTANILLA and JOHN MARZULLI
Daily News Staff Writers
An off-duty Queens cop was charged yesterday
with whipping his 11-year-old son with a
leather belt because the youngster had clogged the
toilet with tissue, authorities said. The boy's mother
sought help at the 107th Precinct Thursday after her
husband, Officer Abdullah Shamsid-Deen, allegedly
refused to let her take her son to the doctor, and a
911 operator discouraged her from reporting the
incident.
A police spokesman said the 911 operator's alleged
action will be investigated.
Shamsid-Deen, a 10-year veteran assigned to the
103d Precinct in Jamaica, was charged with assault
and endangering the welfare of a minor. He also has
been suspended without pay.
Shamsid-Deen's wife, Rasia, said she found the boy
limping when she returned home from work about
6:45 p.m. Thursday. Police said he told her he had
been whipped about 15 times across his bare legs by
Shamsid-Deen after stopping up the toilet.
The boy reportedly had numerous cuts and bruises
on his legs. Rasia Shamsid-Deen called 911 and said
she was told her son might be taken away if the
beating was reported.
When she tried to leave with the boy, Shamsid-Deen
blocked the door and told the son to wash his legs,
cops said.
She left the apartment on her own and was escorted
back by cops who arrested Shamsid-Deen, also
serving him with an order of protection his wife had
obtained two weeks ago forbidding him from
harassing her. The couple share the same apartment.
Original Story Date: 03/08/97
- - -
Correction officer's nightmare
After finishing her shift at the James A. Thomas
Center on Rikers Island at 12:45 p.m. Feb.
28, Correction Officer Migdalia Miranda headed
home to the north Bronx.
It was a Friday, and Miranda was
looking forward to spending a
peaceful afternoon shopping with her
husband, James, and their
8-month-old daughter, Krystal. The
10-year veteran of the brutal nether
world of city jails never imagined the terror that
awaited her or its source.
The couple drove to Yonkers, had lunch at the
Texas Grill and shopped for toys for the baby at
several stores along Central Ave. They headed back
to the Bronx about 6 p.m.
They planned to leave Krystal at Miranda's sister's
apartment, around the corner from their place in the
Mosholu area of the Bronx. On Van Cortlandt Park
South near Hillman Ave., a block away, two cops
from the 50th Precinct, Anthony Vespa and Sammy
Gawan, pulled them over.
Vespa and Gawan were randomly stopping cars,
something that has become so common of late it's
called "doing routine checks of motorists." Miranda's
husband was driving, while she held the baby in the
passenger seat.
Miranda flashed her correction officer's badge,
expecting to be waved on. Instead, she later told
Internal Affairs Bureau investigators, Gawan barked,
"You're nothing but a jail guard, pull over to the
side."
The cops demanded James Miranda's license,
registration and insurance.
"We were in our Cadillac Seville, which we usually
keep garaged, and didn't have the car's current
insurance [card] on us," Migdalia Miranda said. "I
handed the baby to my husband, got out of the car
and told one of the cops that we lived only a block
away, that I could run home and get the insurance
card if he wanted."
She said Gawan screamed, "Get the f--k inside the
car. I didn't tell you to get out."
Shocked at Gawan's hostility, Miranda responded:
"Can you call the sergeant, and can I have your
name?"
"That only got him more agitated," she said. "He spun
me around, handcuffed me and banged my head into
the car twice."
Her husband was still in the driver's seat.
"I felt totally helpless," said James Miranda, who runs
an exterminating company. "My baby was in my
arms, and there was nothing I could do."
Luz Machuca and Angel Rosario, who witnessed the
incident, have been interviewed by IAB investigators.
"It was unbelievable what they did to her," said
Rosario, a well-known community leader and
founder of the Bronx Puerto Rican Day Parade.
Gawan and Vespa threw Migdalia Miranda into their
patrol car and drove off, but, in the most amazing
part of this story: They didn't drive straight to the
precinct stationhouse.
Miranda said they took her on a terror ride.
"They drove to a poorly lit area on Bailey Ave. and
pulled over, then they turned off the car radio," she
said. "Gawan, who was sitting in the backseat, began
mashing his hand into my face.
"He kept saying, 'Who the hell do you think you are?
You're nothing but a jail guard. Do you know what I
go through every day?' I really started to panic. I
thought they were going to kill me."
She said she begged them to take her to the
stationhouse. After what seemed to her like an hour
but was probably only 15 minutes, they drove to the
stationhouse but did not take her inside. Instead, they
parked a half-block away.
Moments later her husband and sister arrived at the
stationhouse. He said the two cops intercepted them
before they could go inside. Migdalia Miranda was
still handcuffed in the patrol car.
"They tried to pacify me," James Miranda said. "One
cop said they weren't going to arrest my wife
because they didn't want her to lose her job. They
just didn't want me to go inside so nobody would
find out what they did."
They released Migdalia Miranda and told the couple
to go home. She was not charged with a crime or
issued a ticket.
Miranda immediately informed her superiors in the
Correction Department and called Internal Affairs.
On March 4, officials at Police Headquarters
announced that Vespa, a six-year veteran, and
Gawan, a 15-year veteran, surrendered their badges
and guns and were placed on modified assignment,
"for the good of the department."
Police, including those at the 50th Precinct, refused
to comment.
"I was a female with two male cops, I had no
weapon, I never resisted, what threat did I pose to
them?" Miranda said. "I know my rights. I expect this
kind of behavior from inmates but not from cops."
Police Commissioner Howard Safir has been waging
his campaign for Courtesy, Professionalism and
Respect by New York's Finest for months now.
There are ads in the subways, and soon the slogan
will be displayed on every police car.
But when a veteran correction officer has to fear for
her safety at the hands of some cops on the street,
you have to wonder about the ordinary citizen.
Original Story Date: 3-11-97
- - -
'Nice Guy' finished at last?
In his 15 years with the New York Police
Department, Officer Sammy Gawad has been
accused of abuse 20 times. That's nearly double the
11 complaints racked up by Francis
Livoti, the notorious hothead who was
acquitted last year in the choking death
of Anthony Baez but later fired for
using an illegal choke hold.
Gawad has been placed on modified duty for
allegedly assaulting a correction officer and taking
her on a terror ride after a routine car stop last
month.
Gawad, whose latest escapade is being investigated
by the Bronx district attorney's office, is a Livoti
waiting to happen, according to some of his victims.
The 20 incidents include 14 allegations of using
unnecessary force and other allegations ranging from
discourtesy to using foul language to abuse of
authority.
Several female motorists have complained that
Gawad wrote bogus tickets and harassed or
threatened them after stopping them.
Unlike Livoti, who patrolled the crime-ridden 46th
Precinct in the Tremont area, Gawad has spent most
of his career at the Country Club, the nickname cops
use for the 50th Precinct in sedate, tree-lined
Riverdale.
In a 1987 incident, the only one the department
substantiated, Gawad was arrested in Ossining,
N.Y., for threatening to kill the wife of a local cop
after getting into a dispute over a parking spot. He
received a 15-day suspension.
"That man is a psychopath. I can't believe he's still on
the police force," said the woman, who asked not to
be identified.
She and several other women who claim they were
victims of Gawad, contacted the Daily News after
reading about the harrowing ordeal of veteran
Correction Officer Migdalia Miranda.
She and her 8-month-old daughter were in a car
driven by her husband, James, on Feb. 28 when
Gawad and his partner, Anthony Vespa, stopped
them during a random check of motorists on Van
Cortlandt Park South.
The Mirandas had left their auto insurance card at
home. Migdalia showed the cops her correction
badge and offered to walk a half block home to get
the card.
According to the couple, Gawad yelled, "Get the f--
back in the car." When she objected to his language,
he handcuffed her, banged her head twice against her
car and threw her in his cruiser, according to two
bystanders who gave statements to police internal
affairs investigators.
The cops then drove her to a secluded spot near the
Major Deegan Expressway, she said, where Gawad
repeatedly mashed his hand in her face and yelled:
"Who the hell do you think you are? You're nothing
but a jail guard."
After 15 minutes of this they drove to the
stationhouse on Kingsbridge Ave. They did not take
her inside or book her, but released her on the street
when her husband arrived with her sister.
"She was disorderly and loud," Gawad told me last
week. "Ninety-five per cent of what that woman said
are lies."
He said he didn't give her a summons or book her
because "deep in my heart I felt for her. I didn't want
her to lose her job. I've never had any problems. I'm
a very nice person."
Sure, a real Mr. Nice Guy, said Yolanda Alvarez,
the manager of a Sunoco station where many 50th
Precinct cops repair their cars. "He used to come
into my job and try to hit on me every night."
Alvarez says she refused to go out with him, and
then, around 8 p.m. Jan. 27, 1995, as she was
driving home, Gawad stopped her at 238th St. and
Riverdale Ave.
"He said I had run a red light. I was sure I hadn't.
My brother's a cop. I showed him my PBA card.
Gawad just threw it on the floor and wrote me a $75
ticket. I fought it, but he lied in court. I know he just
gave me a summons because I wouldn't go out with
him."
Since then, Alvarez said, Gawad has regularly pulled
her over during supposed routine car checks. "I'm
afraid now every time I see a police car."
Mr. Nice Guy said Alvarez was lying, too. "I'm a
married man," he said. "I wouldn't do that. I'm in a
summons unit in a precinct. It turns people off when I
give them tickets."
One of his tickets went to Rosemary Gynegrowski,
whom Gawad stopped in August 1992 while she
was riding her bicycle.
"He demanded to see my identification and the bill of
sale for my bike. I couldn't believe it," she said. "I'm
a 32-year-old registered nurse. Believe me, I don't
look like a bike thief. I laughed and told him this was
stupid."
Gawad slapped her with a $50 ticket for making an
illegal turn at a stop light. She said she has witnessed
Gawad being abusive to others in her neighborhood.
"He's crazy, and he picks on women and children,"
she said.
But after 20 complaints, someone at 1 Police Plaza
has decided to check out Mr. Nice Guy.
Deputy Police Commissioner Marilyn Mode said
internal affairs detectives are moving forward
"thoroughly and expeditiously" with an investigation
and are cooperating with the district attorney's office.
Police Commissioner Howard Safir has less
tolerance for abusive cops than his predecessor
William Bratton. Safir fired Livoti and initiated a
program where any cop with more than six abuse
complaints automatically gets monitored.
Up in Riverdale, some women and children are
already breathing easier.
Original Story Date: 032197
- - -
Statistics show bias in NYPD
lack and Hispanic cops have said for years
that their superiors treat them worse and
discipline them more than their white counterparts.
Cops are all the same color, blue, the
brass has responded, and the NYPD,
unlike the rest of the world, treats
everyone the same.
But even as they continued to repeat this line, police
officials were quietly compiling figures that show the
systematic inequality they so vehemently denied.
For the past 20 years, minority and female cops have
been accused of serious misconduct that can result in
dismissal or suspension at far higher rates than their
white male colleagues, according to the department's
year-by-year computer summaries of disciplinary
actions.
The records, which were obtained by the Daily
News, have never before been made public.
Last year, for instance, white cops comprised 68%
of the 38,000-member police force, but 59% of the
964 cops accused of serious misconduct were
minorities.
And while 13.7% of uniformed personnel were
black, they made up 35.1% of those brought up on
charges.
Since 1977, the department has meted out its
toughest discipline, called charges and specifications,
to black cops at two to three times their actual
numbers in the department, to women at twice their
number and to Hispanics at 1 1/2 times their number.
The only serious drop in the rate of black cops
disciplined occurred from 1990 to 1993, the four
years that David Dinkins was mayor.
It plummeted during those years, from 34.4% of
cops charged in 1989 to 24.8% in 1993. In 1989,
black cops made up only 11% of the department.
In 1994, the first year of the Giuliani administration,
the percentages of both black and Hispanic cops
disciplined began to rise again and is now near
record levels for both groups.
"We've always known this was happening, but for
the first time we have some proof," said Sgt.
Anthony Miranda, president of the Latino Officers
Association.
Late yesterday, the Guardians, the black police
officers group, and the Latino Officers Association
filed a class-action federal equal opportunity
complaint. They plan to use the department's own
computer records to force a comprehensive review
of disciplinary procedures.
"It's outrageous that this kind of de facto
discrimination and disparate treatment has been
going on for so long," said civil rights lawyer Bonita
Zelman, the attorney for the two groups who has
doggedly defended dozens of black and Hispanic
cops at departmental trials.
Police officials again repeated their timeworn line.
"We discipline people who violate our regulations
without regard to their color or their gender," said
Deputy Commissioner Marilyn Mode. "Your
premise is absurd."
But it is inconceivable that every year for the past 20
years commanders have somehow found greater
fault with black, Hispanic and female cops.
Mike Julian, a former chief of personnel in the
department who also was a respected precinct
commander for many years, believes some of the
disparity results because most commanders, being
white, don't understand minority cops.
"If a white commander has a misunderstanding with a
black cop, it's insubordination," Julian said. "If it
happens with a white cop, the guy's excused as just
being stupid."
"There's always been more scrutiny applied to
Latinos, blacks and women," said Hector Soto, who
was in charge of prosecuting police misconduct
under Ben Ward, the city's first black police
commissioner.
Ironically, it was under Ward that black cops had the
most charges brought against them.
"There was a lot of antagonism in the department
against minority cops in those years, because of the
quota systems," Soto said. "The old-timers felt the
new cops weren't qualified, and I was constantly
getting a lot of crap charges from the precinct
commanders.
"We would reject a lot of the stuff and send it back
down for lighter punishment, like command
disciplines. But we never tried to keep track of how
it was breaking down racially."
Female cops have fared even worse than Hispanic
cops. Since 1985, 20% to 25% of cops charged
with misconduct have been women, even though they
have never made up more than 15% of the force.
Only in rare instances, however, has discrimination
actually been proven.
In 1986, Officer Mary Lenihan was fired after it was
determined that she was psychologically unfit. She
had repeatedly complained to her superiors that she
was treated unfairly in her assignments.
A federal judge ordered Lenihan's reinstatement
when her lawyer, Janice Goodman, showed that 19
male cops — who had been ordered to undergo
treatment for emotional disorders following serious
infractions, including an officer who shot up a bar
and another who had 17 abuse complaints against
him — had not been fired.
Original Story Date: 041797
- - -
The important thing is the cop's mindset. In the
moment after the shooting, Anthony Pellegrini
said he shot Kevin Cedeno in the back because he
believed Cedeno had a sawed-off
shotgun. That makes it a mistake, but
not necessarily a criminal mistake.
With no credible witnesses to the
controversial police shooting — which
one politician now admits he mistakenly described as
an execution — the case will probably be decided
on the cop's story. As of yesterday, prosecutors'
only witnesses were the police officers at the April 6
shooting.
"Who is to say?" said a senior law enforcement
official with intimate knowledge of the case. "But if
the cop is going to say he thought the guy had a
shotgun, he may be cleared."
Pellegrini wants to talk to the Manhattan district
attorney's office to tell his side of things.
"I shot him in the back," Pellegrini reportedly told his
fellow officers immediately after firing one shot from
his 9-mm. Glock. "I thought he had a shotgun."
A grand jury has not heard this, sources said.
It was never really a story about a cop who shot a
knife-wielding teenager. After the shooting, Mayor
Giuliani said Cedeno had a knife and lunged at cops
who fired in self-defense.
Pellegrini never saw a knife, sources said, and says
he wouldn't have fired at Cedeno if he had. He fired
because he mistook the handle of a 22-inch machete
for a sawed-off shotgun. His fear and reaction were
understandable, investigators said. Pellegrini's
partner, Michael Garcia, had just yelled, "He's got a
gun."
It was a mistake, and there are mistakes all over the
place.
The mayor started the city off on the wrong foot
when he rushed in blindly to defend the police. That
was wrong, and it was wrong for mayoral candidate
Fernando Ferrer to have used the word "execution,"
which, in this case, means cold-blooded murder.
"I didn't mean to suggest premeditation," Ferrer told
me yesterday.
" 'Execution' is the wrong word," I said. "It goes to
motive.
"I think you're right," Ferrer said. "I wasn't saying
premeditation."
Ferrer is a reasonable man. He has admitted that he
used the wrong word. But that doesn't mean he's
wrong to question the police or the mayor.
Their credibility is wounded, perhaps mortally. But
Cedeno's unfortunate death was not a state-ordered
killing.
Al Sharpton knows this, too. Lost in all the
misinformation is the fact that the good reverend did
not say anything about the shooting until several days
after Giuliani's erroneous account. He paid for an
independent autopsy and walked through the
neighborhood, talking angry kids out of taking to the
streets. This is leadership.
"Rudy made this political," Sharpton said. "I didn't
make it political. If you want to lead, you have to go
and lead. We had kids who wanted to riot in
Washington Heights. I went up there and talked them
out of that."
A largely overlooked part of this story is an ethnic
dispute between Dominican and American black
kids before the shooting. The black youths had not
been invited to a party, thrown by some Dominican
kids, but their girlfriends, including Cedeno's sister,
were more than welcome. When the black youths
showed up, trouble erupted.
"I have said two things in this case from the first day,"
Sharpton said. "One of the challenges is to account
for the police policy. The other one is about what
happened before the shooting. . . . You have to
challenge kids to stop fighting each other."
Pellegrini must tell his story. He isn't hiding. I asked
Sharpton how he would feel if Pellegrini said he was
facing a shotgun.
"We never said we knew what happened," Sharpton
replied. "The only one who did was the mayor. And
he was wrong. So no one knows whether the cop or
the family is going to get a fair shake."
To date, prosecutors haven't found any witnesses
other than cops.
"Some eyewitness accounts have been fabricated,"
an investigator said. "We have determined that
people that claimed to have witnessed the shooting
and gave us statements were not even there."
This is somewhat reminiscent of July 1992, and
Michael O'Keefe and Kiko Garcia. For months,
alleged witnesses led the city to believe that Garcia
had been executed. But when we finally heard
O'Keefe's radio transmissions, the city realized the
cop was fighting for his life.
"People don't want to come forward because they
are afraid of being killed by witnesses or deported
by immigration," the investigator said. "In the
neighborhood, even legal aliens are reluctant to come
forward."
Ultimately, Pellegrini will come forward. There is no
reason for him not to explain his mindset. And
without a witness telling a different story, the cop will
be cleared because his mistake in judgment was not
a criminal mistake.
Original Story Date: 041897
- - -
By JOHN MARZULLI
Daily News Staff Writer
The acting police commissioner ignored a police
trial judge's finding that a police officer should
be fired for missing 200 hours of work and instead
allowed the cop to pay a $50,000 fine, the Daily
News has learned.
By okaying the highly unusual penalty, First Deputy
Commissioner Tosano Simonetti cleared the way for
Officer Jay Creditor, a Patrolmen's Benevolent
Association delegate, to retire on a tax-free disability
pension worth $1.4 million.
Creditor, a 10-year veteran assigned to Queens'
110th Precinct, is seeking the pension due to a back
injury he sustained in 1988 while struggling with a
suspect.
Officials said Creditor paid the fine, roughly equal to
a year's salary, by check yesterday. His pension
request is expected to be approved today, sources
said.
The officer became the target of a police
investigation last year because he was AWOL more
than 200 hours during a six-month period, never
notifying his supervisors of his whereabouts, officials
said.
Police prosecutors rushed Creditor's case to trial last
month, seeking his dismissal before the cop's pension
request came before the pension board.
At his trial, Creditor claimed the charges were
cooked up by sergeants jealous of him because his
union status gave him "more power" than his
supervisors.
Deputy Commissioner in Charge of Trials Rae
Downes Koshetz rejected Creditor's argument. She
found the cop guilty of 15 administrative charges and
recommended termination in a finding handed down
on Monday.
But even before that decision, Police Commissioner
Howard Safir ordered the cop and the department to
come up with an agreement, police spokeswoman
Marilyn Mode said.
Mode conceded it is rare for the police
commissioner to reject the trial judge's findings. She
said she did not know why Safir pushed for a deal.
"The penalty here is considerable," Mode said of the
fine. The final agreement was signed by Simonetti,
who has been running the department since Safir
underwent emergency double-bypass heart surgery
last week.
A police official close to the probe blasted the deal.
"This sends a message to other cops of a back-room
deal," the official said.
Creditor's precinct commander and a lieutenant who
was Creditor's immediate supervisor face disciplinary
action stemming from his absences. Creditor's
attorney, Stuart London, did not return a call for
comment.
Original Story Date:3-12-97
- - -
By FRANK LOMBARDI
Daily News Staff Writer
Democratic mayoral contender Fernando Ferrer
yesterday told a radio audience that the fatal
police shooting of Manhattan teen Kevin Cedeno
was "an execution."
The Bronx borough president, appearing on the
WLIB-AM show of former Mayor David Dinkins,
criticized city cops over the finding that Cedeno was
shot in the back.
"It runs against the grain of the American psyche to
shoot someone in the back," Ferrer said. "To shoot
someone in the back is an execution, and that's
precisely what occurred here."
The remarks further escalated an already angry
controversy over the April 6 shooting of the
16-year-old by Police Officer Anthony Pellegrini.
Cedeno, who has an arrest record and was on
probation for robbery, was carrying a 22-inch
machete when he was shot while fleeing cops.
Pellegrini has not given an explanation for the
shooting, which is under investigation by Manhattan
prosecutors and the police Internal Affairs Bureau.
Although the investigations are still in their early
stages, Ferrer stressed that police guidelines prohibit
officers from shooting fleeing suspects.
"If you shoot someone in the back, it's an execution,"
Ferrer said when asked about his broadcast
comments. "And what happened here was shooting
in the back. It wasn't shooting in the leg, it wasn't
shooting in the arm, it was shooting in the back."
Ferrer's remarks drew sharp criticism from police
and Democratic mayoral hopeful the Rev. Al
Sharpton - but for opposite reasons.
"It's irresponsible and pre-judgmental," said Marilyn
Mode, chief spokeswoman for Police Commissioner
Howard Safir.
Joseph Mancini, an official of the Patrolmen's
Benevolent Association, said: "Just because someone
was shot in the back doesn't mean he was executed.
It could have been the only way to save someone's
life. To come out and say it was an execution totally
disregards due process."
Campaign officials for Mayor Giuliani declined to
comment. But Sharpton - the Cedeno family's
spokesman - questioned Ferrer's motive for the
remarks.
"I called it an execution from the first day," said
Sharpton.
The black Baptist minister asked why Ferrer, the
city's most visible Latino official, waited so long to
speak out - and why he chose the radio show of
the city's first black mayor as his forum. "Was he
pandering to a black radio audience?" asked
Sharpton.
Ferrer responded that he, unlike Sharpton, withheld
comment until the cause of death was established by
separate autopsies conducted by the city medical
examiner's office and by experts for Cedeno's family.
The exchange added fuel to a debate that already
has become an issue in the 1997 mayoral campaign.
The four Democrats vying to challenge Giuliani,
including Manhattan Borough President Ruth
Messinger and Brooklyn City Councilman Sal
Albanese, have criticized the GOP incumbent for
initially defending the shooting as an apparent case of
self-defense.
Original Story Date: 041797
- - -
As last week's events proved, we New Yorkers
still have our share of troubles in the world of
law and order. We saw a dirty cop smacked with a
foam rubber paddle, a political
opportunist from the Bronx try some
rabble-rousing, and we heard another
set of black and Hispanic complaints
that underline what appears to be
racial friction within the NYPD itself.
Let us now pull back the scab and look at a bit of
the pus.
Kevin Nannery, a former police sergeant, was the
ringleader of a crew so gutter-spirited it gave the
uptown 30th Precinct its nickname the "Dirty 30." At
a time when our city's cops are doing one humdinger
of a job, they are smashed in the face with the
documented rotten eggs of Nannery's Raiders.
Nannery's Raiders kicked in doors without warrants,
stole money and drugs from dope dealers, lied on the
witness stand and even sold drugs themselves. Very
bad guys with badges.
Yet the leader of the Raiders may well start a second
career as an actor, since he seems to have a large
reservoir of melodrama in his soul. Nannery broke
down and cried a river several times in court when
he was on the edge of receiving a prison sentence
(the tearful repetition was probably meant to make
sure that federal Judge Lawrence M. McKenna
knew Nannery was quite upset).
Some might think that Nannery was less contrite
about his crimes than he was horrified by the
possibility of getting the treatment inmates save for
crooked cops. Anyway, all he got was a year under
house arrest, five years probation and a fine of three
grand.
I'm sure that sentence shocked some into believing
that too many judges inhale goof gas before going to
work. The explanation, however, is that since
Nannery cooperated with the prosecution he was
given some slack.
But while it may be necessary to cut some deals in
order to most effectively mount certain cases,
sentences like the one Nannery got intensify already
cynical attitudes about a double standard for dirty
cops, and such judicial patty-cake also plays that
much easier into the hands of opportunists and
rabble-rousers.
One such opportunist is Bronx Borough President
and Democratic mayoral contender Fernando
Ferrer, who called the recent police shooting of
Kevin Cedeno "an execution." Mayor Giuliani, who
took the side of the cops immediately, had to back
away when the autopsy found that Cedeno had been
shot in the back. This did not stop him, however,
from accusing Ferrer of making irresponsible
statements before all the facts are in.
Then Al Sharpton observed that Ferrer was just
trying to make political hay in his bid for mayor, since
he had done nothing when the killing was reported
and had never even spoken to the family (which
Sharpton rightly chastized Guiliani for a few days
earlier). As an ambulance chaser who takes a
backseat to no one, Sharpton should know.
Sharpton was also standing against the wall at the
press conference when representatives of the black
cops, the Guardians, and representatives of Hispanic
cops, the Latino Officers Association, announced
that they were filing a federal discrimination
complaint asserting that the NYPD brings
disciplinary charges against so-called minority cops
twice as often as they do against white cops.
I suppose this means that things have changed since
the days when quite often the worst cop you could
encounter was a black or Hispanic who used
brutality to prove that there would be no favoritism
based on genetic accidents. Hope so. I also hope
that this case doesn't turn out to be as embarrassing
as the fact that the NYPD had to dumb down its
written test a few years back in order to promote
minorities, since so, so many kept failing the tests. (I
wonder if either organization considered protesting
that decision.)
No matter how one adds up all of these events, they
make it quite easy to understand why, even as crime
continues to fall, many still suffer from an immature
but understandable lack of faith in the basic nature of
law enforcement.
Original Story Date: 042097
RAY NORMANDEAU
You nay wish to submit stories to "Street News".
Ray Normandeau, Rita Frazier (Normandeau); NYC actors
pictures and resumes at http://www.buzznyc.com
Normandeau Newswire now a full page in NYC's "Street News" where NYC PD
"Profiling" is mentioned.