Acting Schenectady Chief was 1 of 5 officers tried in beating
BoB
By MICHAEL DeMASI
Gazette Reporter
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SCHENECTADY - He's been a police officer for 22 years, fulfilling a
lifelong dream and doing it in the city where he was born and raised.
Jack Falvo Jr. rose through the ranks from patrolman to sergeant, then
lieutenant, and is now acting chief of the department. For a dozen
years he has been commander of the SWAT team, and has taken on other
leadership roles.
His goals are to become the permanent chief and to promote honor and
integrity on a police force whose day-to-day achievements have been
overshadowed by scandal and controversy. He helped clean house by
cooperating with a federal investigation that resulted in the
convictions of four officers on corruption charges.
But, as he reaches for the next rung on the ladder, Falvo must contend
with an event from his own past that could stop him.
Falvo was one of the "Binghamton Five," a group of officers who stood
trial in a 1992 civil case for allegedly beating a man, John C.
Rodick, whom the officers believed was wanted for a double killing in
Florida.
Rodick won in court. After appeals and other legal maneuvering, he
settled with the city in 1995 for $1.75 million, the biggest payout in
a police misconduct trial in Schenectady's history.
Falvo, and his association with the Rodick case, has become a
poster-child of sorts for what critics say is wrong with the Police
Department - that a patrolman with such a black mark on his record
could still get promoted and be a contender for the chief's job.
Yet the facts of the case, contained in hundreds of pages of court
transcripts, paint a more complex picture of Falvo's role than what
has been remembered and passed on in the short-hand telling of the
story.
To this day, Falvo insists what happened on the night of Feb. 27,
1989, in an apartment in the Stockade neighborhood has been
exaggerated and misunderstood by the public. He blames a shoddy legal
defense - not himself or the four other officers or two federal juries
- for the verdicts and the financial pain imposed on city taxpayers.
"I'm very comfortable with what happened that night, and God's the
true judge here and someday we'll all be judged by God," said Falvo,
who said he was glad to talk about the case when asked by The Sunday
Gazette. "I sleep well at night."
Kevin Luibrand, the civil rights attorney who represented Rodick and
the latest successful police brutality plaintiff against the city,
Rebecca DiSorbo, cautioned against second-guessing the juries who
heard the complete testimony inside a federal courthouse in
Binghamton.
"People can take bits and pieces and twist them and say certain things
were said or weren't said," Luibrand said. "But during a fully
litigated trial that lasted over a week, and a second trial that
lasted over a week, the jury didn't have any trouble reaching their
judgments. They were quick and decisive."
The incident
On the night of Feb. 27, 1989, Falvo and Officer Brian Carroll were
assigned to car No. 109, which patrolled downtown. Falvo, at the time
a patrolman with nine years on the job, drove.
About 10:20 p.m., Falvo testified in court, he and Carroll were
dispatched to 150½ Front St., an apartment house in the Stockade
that's at the end of a long driveway and mostly obscured from the
road. The rustic-looking building is known as the Whitmyre Broom
Factory.
In his interview with the Gazette, Falvo said they were responding to
a call from Officer Robert McHugh, who had tracked down a vehicle that
was involved in a hit-and-run in Schenectady earlier that evening.
Luibrand described it as a "fender-bender" in which nobody was hurt.
The truck belonged to Rodick, a mason by trade who lived in apartment
No. 7 with his girlfriend, Teresa M. Zuloo.
Within minutes, Sgt. Eric Yager and Officer Kevin Coker joined Falvo,
Carroll and McHugh on the scene.
"There's data coming in from dispatch saying there's a warrant for him
[Rodick] out of Volusia County, Florida, for a double homicide," Falvo
said in the interview. "I know the image out there is we're going to
go in and commit excessive force against this guy. That's not the way
it was."
Falvo said McHugh had tried knocking on the door and got no response,
but with his flashlight he could see somebody inside. Yager, as
sergeant and the officer in charge, told the officers they had the
authority to enter Rodick's apartment, Falvo said.
Both Rodick and Zuloo testified they were sleeping naked in bed in the
second floor loft of the apartment. Zuloo testified she heard cars
pulling up the gravel driveway and people talking and walking. She
looked out the front window and saw police officers looking in
Rodick's truck. She told Rodick, but he didn't seem concerned so she
got back in bed.
According to Falvo, Carroll got in the apartment through an unlocked
sliding glass door, and let the other officers inside.
"I heard the door downstairs open," Zuloo testified. "Crashed open and
then there was sounds of people in my house. People stomping around,
moving around, yelling around." She hid in the upstairs bathroom.
Falvo said he, Yager and McHugh were the first to climb the stairs to
the loft. He said Rodick was on the stairs "stark naked."
`Macho thing'
"I'm gonna be blunt with you, nobody wanted to touch him," Falvo
recalled in the interview. "He's naked," he said with a laugh. "Macho
thing."
The three officers heard sounds coming from the bathroom and continued
upstairs, Falvo said. Meanwhile, Carroll and Coker were with Rodick.
Falvo said he heard them fighting on the stairs.
Later, when he looked over the balcony to see what happened
downstairs, Falvo said Rodick was standing in the living room with
blood dripping down his face.
Rodick told a much different story in court.
He testified that he was "jerked" from his bed, "struck on the head,"
pulled over to the top of the stairs and then he fell unconscious.
Rodick testified he was downstairs in the living room when he regained
consciousness. Yager was screaming at him, Rodick testified, calling
him a murderer. Carroll and another officer Rodick couldn't identify
kicked him, hit him with night sticks and flashlights and threw him
into a stereo system. Rodick testified he curled into a ball to
protect himself from the blows.
Based on Zuloo's testimony, the other officer hitting Rodick was
Coker.
Falvo's role
One thing is clear from both Falvo and Zuloo's testimony: Falvo
remained in the loft with Zuloo while Rodick was downstairs with the
other officers. In fact, Falvo and Zuloo recognized each other from
the days when they attended Oneida Middle School together.
But what Falvo did while he was upstairs in the loft with Zuloo is in
dispute.
Zuloo testified: "I kept saying, `Stop hitting him, stop hitting him,'
and nobody stopped hitting him. Nobody said stop hitting him, except
for me. John didn't say anything. John was not there. I thought they
were going to kill him. They wouldn't stop hitting him. I had asked
Mr. Falvo why are they hitting him. . . . And he pulled me back from
the edge so I couldn't see down anymore and said, `Don't make it any
harder on yourself.' "
During the interview, Falvo smiled confidently when he heard that
portion of Zuloo's testimony read back to him.
"She's lyin'," he said. "All of it. She didn't witness nothing. I
didn't witness anything. I can hear it. I heard what was going on, but
she said she watched the whole thing. That's not true. She didn't see
anything. I didn't see anything. I don't know if Yager or McHugh ever
looked."
Falvo said he didn't go downstairs sooner to see what was happening
because he and McHugh needed time to determine whether Zuloo posed a
threat. Afterward, when Falvo went downstairs, he said he told Zuloo
to get some clothes for Rodick, but Rodick refused to put them on.
Zuloo testified Rodick was handcuffed on the floor, bleeding and
"limp." She testified that Carroll and Coker dragged Rodick out the
door naked on the cold February night.
Falvo said it was actually he and Carroll who "walked" Rodick to the
patrol car. They threw a blanket on him, he said.
"I know they said he was dragged," Falvo said. "Check his injuries.
They said he had bruises on the tops of his knees. If you're dragging
somebody, his injuries would have been on the top of his toes."
According to Luibrand, Rodick's apartment is carpeted. "The people
that heard the facts heard that he had scraped knees and there was
testimony he was dragged," Luibrand said.
At the police station, Falvo testified, Rodick was still naked and
handcuffed and put in a holding cell known as "the cage."
Rodick testified that he sat in the cage, bleeding and freezing. About
an hour and a half later, he testified, somebody removed the cuffs and
gave him clothes that Zuloo brought to the station.
Falvo paints a different picture. When they got to the station, he
said, Rodick was apologizing, saying, "I hope I didn't hurt you guys."
"We asked him several times if he wanted medical attention," Falvo
said. "That was the policy back then, and if they refused, that was
the policy. Since then the policy has changed. I remember him saying,
`No, I just want to wash up.' "
As the police later learned, Rodick was not wanted in Florida for
double murder. He was wanted for a probation violation in connection
with leaving the scene of an accident on State Road 400 in Volusia
County where two people were killed in July 1984.
According to Luibrand, the two people who were killed were struck by
another vehicle prior to Rodick hitting them. Rodick pleaded no
contest to leaving the scene, and the charges against him for causing
the deaths were dismissed.
Due to a bureaucratic snafu, and a missed appointment with a probation
officer in Schenectady, Luibrand said, a warrant was put out for
Rodick's arrest by the authorities in Florida. The teletype
information about the warrant wasn't accurate, however, and it got
communicated to a dispatcher in Schenectady that Rodick was wanted for
double homicide.
Schenectady police charged Rodick with resisting arrest and other
crimes for the altercation in his apartment.
The charges were dismissed when former City Court Judge Louise H.
Smith refused to accept the warrant as the underlying reason for
Rodick's arrest. The warrant didn't have a seal certifying its
authenticity because it was a faxed copy from Florida.
Corporation Counsel Michael Brockbank did not represent the city at
the time but has read the court transcripts and is flabbergasted the
charges were dropped for that reason. The dismissal set the stage for
the civil rights lawsuit and handicapped the city's defense, he said.
"They had a reason for going after him," Brockbank said. "If you read
the record you will see the [federal] court acknowledges that the
warrants existed but the court says, `No, I find that to be
prejudicial.' That kind of legal setting sets the stage for what
happened."
Luibrand responded, "The jury knew full well that there was a warrant.
They knew the basis, and Rodick explained the basis. There was one
Schenectady County probation officer who testified to the reason. And
there was a Schenectady city clerk who testified. So it was explored."
Falvo, 46, calls the civil rights lawsuit and the $1.75 million
settlement one of the worst travesties ever inflicted on the city, and
said it has been a guiding force for him. He keeps with him a
cardboard box full of the court papers and newspaper articles, and
said he'll talk about the case with anyone, at anytime, anywhere.
Falvo has refused to let it hold him back professionally. Last
December he was promoted to assistant chief. About a month ago he was
named acting chief when Gregory T. Kaczmarek was demoted to assistant
chief.
Now acting chief
Mayor Albert P. Jurczynski won't appoint a permanent chief until after
a public safety commissioner is hired, most likely in late May or
early June. The mayor has said Falvo is not a shoo-in for the chief's
job.
Falvo doesn't think his involvement in the Rodick case will stand in
the way of an appointment to permanent chief. Still, one leader of the
Schenectady chapter of the NAACP, Fred Clark, questions Falvo's
credentials.
"I know it's been referred to me as being blemished," Falvo said. "I'm
not blemished. I'm scarred. But you know what? That's the only scar I
have. How about the rest of my career? How about the last 2½ years of
a federal corruption probe in our department that I've been involved
with? I look at it as being part of my mission to promote integrity
and honesty in our department."
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