- History - NYPD
- - -
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
- - -
It's the same troubling story all over again. A
black undercover cop is mistakenly shot or
beaten by fellow cops during an arrest.
This time the name is Sgt. Dexter
Brown. He was shot twice in the back
by a member of his undercover team
during a narcotics buy-and-bust
operation the morning of Feb. 27 on
Franklin Ave. in Brooklyn
Once again, the injured cop is charging a coverup by
police commanders and a false account by officers at
the scene.
But Brown's account is far more troubling than any
we have yet heard. It was given by his lawyer,
Bonita Zelman, during a press conference yesterday
that announced a $55 million civil suit against the city.
Zelman would not permit Brown to talk about the
incident because he still has not been interviewed by
NYPD investigators.
As Zelman told it, Brown was the supervising
sergeant on an eight-man squad that night, a 13-year
veteran with an unblemished record.
He was the first member of the team to rush into the
foyer of 325 Franklin to arrest two men who had just
sold some drugs to another undercover.
As the two suspects rushed Brown and struggled
with him for his gun, Brown fired two or three times.
One of the suspects, Steven Service, fell, apparently
wounded in the thigh. The other suspect fled inside
the building.
At that point, Zelman said, Brown began to back out
of the building to await help from the rest of the
team.
As he did so, he heard shots coming from the street
and realized he'd been wounded. He turned and saw
his "ghost" — the man specifically assigned to
protect him in tight situations.
"Why are you shooting at me?" Brown screamed.
At that point, according to Zelman, the ghost
continued to fire into the hallway at the suspect. The
bullets whizzed past Brown.
"My client ordered the other cop to stop shooting,
but the other cop kept firing," Zelman said. Service
was shot to death.
The investigation began almost immediately.
That first night, investigators were unsure what had
happened, said NYPD spokesman Michael Collins.
They believed Brown might have been shot by one
of the suspects. "As far as we know, the ghost and
another detective on the street fired because they
thought Brown's life was in danger," Collins said.
The arrest report for the dead man, Service, accuses
him of attempted murder, assault and criminal use of
a firearm. "Defendant did attempt to murder an
on-duty M.O.S. [member of the service] by shooting
[him] three times," the report states.
A few days later, after a group of black cops
challenged initial reports about the shooting, NYPD
brass conceded Brown's injuries could have been
friendly fire.
But according to Brown's account, Service had no
gun at all.
Collins denied any coverup on the part of the
NYPD.
"We're still investigating the incident," he said. "We
haven't yet talked to Brown because he's still out on
sick leave."
The Service family has some questions, too.
"We have independent witnesses who say Service
was shot as he came out of the building unarmed,"
said Tom Wiggin, the family's lawyer. Service was
shot four times, once in the side of the head, once in
the back and twice in the thigh, according to Wiggin.
So there are at least three questions that
need answers: Did cops violate any
procedures in mistakenly shooting
Brown? Why were the initial reports so inaccurate?
And was the shooting of Service justified?
Beyond that is the more troubling question: Why is it
that every time a cop is shot in friendly fire situations,
it is a black or Hispanic cop?
"We've had 28 black cops shot by white cops in
friendly fire incidents in the history of the NYPD,"
said Roger Abel, a founder of the Guardians. "But
there's never been one white cop mistakenly shot by
a black cop."
No one wants to second-guess cops who risk their
lives in perilous undercover operations. But if all the
mistakes go one way, somebody at some point has
to say, "Hold it. Something's wrong here."
Original Story Date: 042898
- - -
By PETE DONOHUE
Daily News Staff Writer
A former cop was convicted yesterday of
shooting and paralyzing a Queens prostitute
who mocked him after he failed to perform sexually.
Rolando Hernandez, who shot the woman eight days
after graduating from the Police Academy, clutched a
small Bible as the jury foreman declared him guilty of
attempted murder, assault and tampering with
evidence.
Hernandez, 25, faces up to 25 years in prison when
sentenced next month by Justice Richard Buchter.
But the woman he paralyzed, 28-year-old Gayle
Hoffman, said Hernandez "deserves to have his arms
and legs handcuffed for a month or so, so he can see
what it feels like."
"He can feed himself, he can clothe himself," said
Hoffman in a telephone interview from a long-term
care facility in Queens. "He doesn't know what it
really feels like to be a prisoner. I'm a prisoner in my
own body."
Assistant District Attorney Kenneth Fischer said two
lives were ruined by the shooting.
"This young woman, who already was leading a sad
life as a drug addict supporting herself as a prostitute,
is now a quadriplegic," Fischer said. "And this guy in
one night threw his life away."
During the trial, the wheelchair-bound woman
described how Hernandez shot her with his service
revolver in March 1996.
She said they had just left his apartment after the
failed sex act and were walking down Beach 29th
St. in Far Rockaway.
"I said he couldn't do anything, and I laughed,"
Hoffman said.
This enraged Hernandez, said Hoffman.
She said he brandished his gun and declared, "You'll
never dis anyone like that again."
The first shot sent her sprawling. Four other shots
missed the mark.
The former cop and a pal had solicited Hoffman on a
Queens street, offering her crack for sex.
Jurors said yesterday that Hoffman seemed credible
despite testimony that she smoked crack before the
shooting and had abused drugs for 13 years.
Hernandez did not testify.
"We knew she wasn't Cinderella," one juror said.
Hoffman has filed a $75 million civil lawsuit against
the city, the Police Department and Hernandez.
Original Story Date: 051497
- - -
Woman's arm almost severed
By BOB KAPPSTATTER
Daily News Bronx Bureau Chief
A Bronx narcotics detective with a history of
domestic violence was charged with attempted
murder yesterday after authorities said he almost
severed his estranged girlfriend's arm in a vicious
knife attack.
Michael Ferrante, 35, was ordered held without bail
in New Rochelle city court after his arrest in
Wednesday's attack.
The 31-year-old victim, whose name was withheld,
was reported in stable condition after surgery
yesterday.
Authorities said Ferrante, a 15-year-veteran, was
placed on modified assignment last week after the
victim reported to police that he had made a death
threat against her.
Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Pirro said the
woman was brought into Westchester County
Medical Center in "life-threatening condition" after
the 7 p.m. attack on North Ave. and Carlton Road
in New Rochelle. Pirro added that doctors are
hopeful the woman will regain full use of her left arm.
Ferrante, of Yonkers, was immediately suspended
without pay from the Police Department after his
arrest.
Pirro said the department "did everything that it was
supposed to do," after the woman filed a formal
complaint against the cop last week.
"It took away his gun, his badge. They put him on
modified duty. And they altered his I.D. card so that
he would not be able to purchase a firearm," she
said, adding that it also filed a domestic violence
incident report with the Ramapo Police Department,
where the initial threat occurred.
The exact circumstances of the attack were still
unclear, she said, since Ferrante made no statements
and the victim had not yet been interviewed.
Ferrante previously had been placed on modified
duty, in 1994, after a domestic incident involving his
wife at the time, police said.
Original Story Date: 052998
- - -
Guilty in Slay
Shot Navy vet in the back
By JORGE FITZ-GIBBON, RAFAEL A. OLMEDA
and CORKY SIEMASZKO
Daily News Staff Writers
A transit cop was found guilty yesterday of
fatally shooting an unarmed Navy veteran in
the back after a confrontation in a deserted Bronx
subway station.
Officer Paolo Colecchia sat stonefaced as a judge
pronounced him guilty of second-degree
manslaughter in the controversial July 4 shooting of
Nathaniel Gaines.
As Colecchia's mother, Maria, collapsed in tears,
Gaines' stepmother fell to her knees and raised her
hands in apparent thanks.
"Praise Jesus," Mary Gaines yelled. "Thank God!"
Colecchia, 35, is the first city cop since 1995 to be
convicted of wrongfully killing a person in the line of
duty.
His eyes widened when Bronx Supreme Court
Justice Ira Globerman found him not guilty of the
more serious first-degree manslaughter charge, which
carries a mandatory jail term.
The cop's expression hardened as the judge
announced the guilty verdict on the less serious
charge.
Prosecutors failed to prove Colecchia intended to
cause Gaines bodily harm. They apparently were
able to show that the officer acted with reckless
disregard.
Colecchia faces a maximum five-to-15-year
sentence. The judge also can sentence him to
probation. Colecchia waived his right to a jury trial.
As a convicted felon, Colecchia faces dismissal from
the police force. "This is a tragedy for everyone,"
said Commissioner Howard Safir.
Colecchia's attorney, Marvyn Kornberg, said police
let his client down by not supporting him in court.
"I think the judge may have realized the importance
of this decision to other members of the New York
City Police Department," said Kornberg.
Gaines' mother, Ethel Green (at left in picture), said
the verdict confirmed "my son did not have to die."
Questions began swirling around the shooting before
Gaines, 26, was buried.
Colecchia was immediately placed on modified duty
and stripped of his gun.
For the first 48 hours of the investigation, police got
no help from Colecchia. Under union rules he did not
have to speak to detectives.
Five days after the shooting, the medical examiner's
office announced Gaines had been shot in the back.
A witness soon surfaced saying Gaines was trying to
run from Colecchia when he was shot. Police rules
forbid cops from firing at fleeing suspects unless the
suspect used or threatened deadly force.
The witness told detectives Colecchia "patted down"
Gaines on a subway, suggesting the cop knew the
vet was unarmed. And moments before he died,
according to the witness, Gaines cried out to
Colecchia, "Why did you shoot me?"
Colecchia testified that he knew Gaines was
unarmed but fired because he believed there was no
other way to stop him from escaping.
"I was thinking if I caught up with him, I'd have to
fight with him," he said.
Original Story Date: 053097
- - -
A veteran city cop was indicted yesterday on
charges he allegedly sodomized an
11-year-old boy in his Brooklyn apartment.
Officer Edward Tighe, a 15-year veteran assigned to
Manhattan Central Booking, was released without
bail yesterday after pleading not guilty to two counts
of sodomy and one count of sexual abuse.
"This police officer is accused of betraying his badge
and the trust of a child," said Brooklyn District
Attorney Charles Hynes.
Tighe, 36, who was suspended from the force
without pay yesterday, has been under investigation
since last August, when the Internal Affairs Bureau
received an anonymous call reporting the attack.
The victim, who is a neighbor of Tighe's, in 1995
went to the cop's Bay Ridge apartment, where they
wrestled. Then Tighe allegedly forced the boy to
perform oral sex on him.
If convicted of first-degree sodomy, the most serious
charge in the indictment, Tighe could face a
maximum sentence of 12 1/2 to 25 years.
Original Story Date: 052398
- - -
By JOHN MARZULLI and JORGE FITZ-GIBBON
Daily News Staff Writers
Bronx narcotics cop was charged yesterday
with stealing $1,200 from the backseat of a
car during a police internal affairs sting.
Prosecutors charge that Officer James Kerrigan, 33,
took the cash from a jacket that was placed in the
backseat of a car he was ordered to drive from E.
Tremont Ave. to the 45th Precinct stationhouse.
Kerrigan, a 12-year Police Department veteran, had
been told the car belonged to a traffic scofflaw who
supposedly was being arrested Tuesday night.
But the car was part of a police integrity test set up
by internal affairs investigators who staged the traffic
bust and had the car wired with a video camera.
Kerrigan, who was suspended without pay, was
charged with fourth-degree grand larceny.
If convicted, he faces a maximum prison term of four
years.
"We in the district attorney's office and the New
York City Police Department want to make it clear
that there is zero tolerance for any kind of
misconduct that tarnishes the badge that the majority
of police officers wear with honor," Bronx District
Attorney Robert Johnson said.
Original Story Date: 052997
- - -
By JOHN MARZULLI
Daily News Staff Writer
Bronx police sergeant was charged with
illegally detaining a livery cabby in a holding
cell in an incident the driver secretly captured on
audio tape, authorities said yesterday.
Sgt. James Caban is accused of locking up the
cabby for 90 minutes after the sergeant's wife
accused the driver of stealing $100 from a purse she
left in his car, authorities said.
Caban allegedly threatened to confiscate the cab
unless the driver coughed up the cash.
The driver, Juan Alvarez, later turned his tape over
to investigators from the NYPD's Internal Affairs
Bureau. Another cop, Aurelio Diaz, who was acting
as an interpreter for Alvarez, who speaks Spanish
but no English, was placed on modified assignment
while his role in the incident is investigated.
Police said the sergeant's wife accidentally left her
purse in Alvarez' cab on Tuesday in the Bronx.
Alvarez knew the woman and returned the purse to
her, police said. But after he left, she said $100 was
missing and called her husband, who was working at
the 41st Precinct in the South Bronx.
He called the driver's dispatcher and summoned
Alvarez to the stationhouse, police said.
A police source said Alvarez carries a
micro-cassette recorder to tape the dispatcher's
instructions. He activated the device in his jacket
pocket when Caban accused him of stealing the
cash.
Caban demanded the money from Alvarez and
handcuffed him when the driver refused. Although
Alvarez maintained his innocence, he finally gave the
sergeant $100 after he was held for 90 minutes in a
stationhouse cell with other prisoners.
Caban was arraigned yesterday on charges of grand
larceny, unlawful imprisonment and official
misconduct, and released on his own recognizance.
He was suspended without pay.
Original Story Date: 060597
- - -
Ten-85. One-Six-Seven and David.
Southbound plat," said the breathless voice.
It was 10:30 p.m. July 4, 1996. Police
Officer Paul Colecchia, a minor
presence at 5-feet-8, 160 pounds,
was wrestling with Nathaniel Levi
Gaines, a substantial 6-feet-1, 210
pounds.
"Don't touch me. Don't touch me," said a second
voice from the background.
Colecchia played the radio transmission over and
over for me last week, all the while staring at an
autopsy photograph of Gaines. The cop is focused
on the tiny, quarter-inch hole in the dead man's back.
The hole, made by a bullet from Colecchia's gun, is
17 inches below the head and 3 1/2 inches to the
right of the spine.
"He tried to kill me," the cop said. "Tried to throw
me on the tracks. . . . That could be a picture of me."
Only Colecchia and the dead man, an unarmed Navy
veteran who served during the Gulf War, know what
happened in the Bronx subway station. At the time,
the police had no adequate explanation. Mayor
Giuliani, after attending Gaines' funeral, said, "There
does not appear to be an explanation for it."
Colecchia's nonjury first-degree manslaughter trial
begins Monday. He says he shot Gaines in the back
after a life-and-death struggle, but argues that under
state law he should be acquitted.
I have read police reports, reviewed court
documents and interviewed many people involved in
the case in an effort to understand what happened on
the platform at 167th St. and the Grand Concourse.
It begins with Police Officer Robert Brooks, shield
No. 21494, who was on his way home after eating
dinner with his parents. The five-year veteran was on
the northwest corner of 188th St. and the Grand
Concourse, talking on the telephone. Brooks, 26,
saw "a light-skin female, black, nicely dressed . . .
short-sleeve shirt and flowing dressy pants with a
flower design." He guessed she was about 20.
She has never come forward, disappearing after
getting off the D train at 59th St. in Manhattan.
Brooks noticed a man behind her. The man was
"wearing a loose-fitting field jacket, camouflage type,
with baggy blue jean pants . . . a black hat that was
pulled around his head." They were not together, and
the man was following a little too closely. Brooks
tailed them into the station.
The woman bought a token and waited for the train
near the token booth. Brooks, who was watching
both of them, thought the man had a wooden object.
When a southbound train pulled into the station, the
man followed the woman into the fifth car. Brooks
kept watch from the next car.
At 182d St., Colecchia boarded the train. Brooks,
who never identified himself as a cop, waved him
over and told him that a man in a camouflage jacket
was stalking a woman in the next car. "I mentioned
he may have had a weapon," Brooks said.
Colecchia, the son of Italian immigrants and an
ex-correction officer, struggles with the language and
often fumbles for the correct words. "He told me, 'I
think he's got something on him. He's stalking a lady.'"
At the next stop, Tremont Ave. and the Grand
Concourse, Colecchia asked Brooks to get off the
train and witness his search of Gaines. "I go up to the
guy and say, 'Excuse me sir, can you step off the
train, please,' which he does. I gave him a quick
patdown."
Brooks and the conductor, Vincent Dottin, said
Colecchia was cordial, but Gaines kept pushing
Colecchia's hands away. Colecchia did not find a
weapon, and Gaines got back on the train in the
same car with the woman.
"I asked Brooks, 'Are you sure?' The gentleman
[Brooks] told me he was definitely following her.
Only then did he tell me the girl was still in the car
with him," Colecchia said.
He got off at 167th St. and the Grand Concourse
and asked the conductor to hold the train. He then
took the woman off. According to Brooks and
Dottin, she said Gaines was definitely following her,
but didn't want to file a complaint. Dottin said
Colecchia suggested keeping her at the station and
letting Gaines ride on.
But Dottin had another idea. "I told him rather than
allowing the man to stay onboard and possibly catch
up with her later on, have her continue to ride, detain
the gentleman here."
Gaines again was asked to leave the train. "I asked
him to leave the station," Colecchia said, "because I
didn't want him following the woman or creating a
problem for someone else on another train. He
seemed intoxicated to me. I smelled marijuana."
Colecchia said Gaines started to walk out, but as
they approached a bench under a poster for a movie,
called "Solo," Gaines changed his mind. "At this time
he states, 'Get away from me,' and pushes me,"
Colecchia said.
He said he reached for his handcuffs, warning Gaines
that if he didn't leave the station he would be arrested
for disorderly conduct.
"At this point we are still struggling," he said. "I got
the bench behind him. I am trying to push him on the
bench. He is a lot bigger and stronger than me. I lost
the cuffs. I reached for the radio with my right hand
and called, '10-85 — officer needs assistance — at
167.' I put my radio back and reach for the Mace.
He has me by the biceps, pinning my arms. I can't
Mace him without Macing myself. He says, 'I am
going to push you on the f-----g tracks.'
"He has his hand on my throat. If I fall on the tracks I
will be killed by a train or 600 volts. I am 3 inches
away, and losing. I kneed him in the groin, but it had
no effect. I pulled my gun with my left hand. He
grabbed the handle. He is screaming he is going to
kill me. I am really scared. This is an intense fight. I
have my back to the tracks.
"This is attempted murder. I was hoping when I took
the gun out he would break and run. He didn't. He
fights for the gun. I get control of the gun and
discharge my firearm."
The first bullet enters the front of Gaines' jacket and
exits after hitting the zipper.
Colecchia said he pivoted and fired again as Gaines
broke free. The second bullet enters Gaines'
dungarees near the right knee and exits at the thigh.
Neither shot strikes Gaines' body. A third bullet hits
Gaines in the back and tears through his right lung.
Investigators recovered three shells, three slugs and
12 bullets from the cop's 9-mm., which holds 16
rounds. So Colecchia got off three or four shots
because he often loaded a 16th bullet in the gun's
magazine. He was as close as 2 feet or as far away
as 8 feet away when he fired, experts testified before
the grand jury.
Gaines ran down the tracks, maybe 250 feet, then up
the stairs before collapsing on a turnstile. He had a
dime bag of pot. THC was found in his urine and
bile, but not in his blood.
"He thought he could kick my ass," Colecchia said.
"He could and almost did."
It is against NYPD guidelines to shoot an unarmed
fleeing person in the back. But Colecchia's attorney,
Marvyn Kornberg, told the grand jury the state penal
code allows a police officer to shoot someone who
has committed a felony in the back.
A New York judge told me last week that since
state law allows a cop to shoot a fleeing felon, he
would acquit Colecchia, if he was presiding at his
trial. And because no cop has been convicted of
shooting someone in the back recently, the state law
has not been tested against a U.S. Supreme Court
decision — Tennessee vs. Garner — that limits
deadly force.
Original Story Date: 051597
- - -
A city cop with a history of arrests for domestic
disputes hanged himself in his girlfriend's
Orange County house, becoming the fourth police
officer to take his own life this year.
Officer Martin Romanchick, 35, was discovered
dead about 8 p.m. Monday in Chester.
He had been arrested 10 times over the past year for
domestic disputes with his ex-wife and for violating
an order of protection she obtained against him,
police said. These arrests led to his suspension from
active duty by the NYPD and a departmental trial
last month that had not yet been resolved.
He had been assigned to a desk job in the
Manhattan court section since the arrests began.
Romanchick spent most of his 13-year career in the
Bronx and earned a dozen commendations.
He saved a life in 1992 when he helped pull a
motorist from a burning van. In 1988, he and his
partner killed a gunman who aimed at the cops when
they interrupted a stickup in a Bronx apartment.
Original Story Date: 071797
- - -
By HENRI E. CAUVIN and CORKY SIEMASZKO
Daily News Staff Writers
An off-duty transit cop fatally shot his former
girlfriend and then killed himself last night as
passersby watched in horror at a busy intersection in
Queens.
The woman was using a pay phone outside a
check-cashing store in Jackson Heights when the
cop approached her at 6:05 p.m., police said.
And as they quarreled beneath the IRT No. 7 train
tracks, the officer pulled out his 9-mm. service
handgun and fired several shots at the woman, police
said.
"I was just crossing the street and I heard three shots
and she just went down," said Luis Gonzalez, 41,
who lives near the intersection of 77th St. and
Roosevelt Ave.
Gonzalez said he ducked for cover and then "heard
two shots, boom! boom!"
When he stood up again, the officer and the woman
lay mortally wounded.
She had been hit three times in the upper torso. He
had a single gunshot wound to the head. Both later
died at Elmhurst Hospital Center.
Police did not name the 28-year-old officer or the
woman, whom they described as a former flame,
because their families had not been notified.
The officer had been going out with the 25-year-old
woman for about a year and they had broken up
recently, said Deputy Chief Lawrence Loesch of the
110th Precinct.
Loesch said detectives investigating the relationship
said the woman did not appear to have taken out any
orders of protection against the officer, who had
been on the force for four years.
"What they were arguing about, we don't know,"
said police spokeswoman Officer Valerie St. Rose.
"And we may never know."
After the shooting, police cordoned off a four-block
area around the intersection and tried to piece
together what happened. And as detectives
questioned potential witnesses, the receiver that the
doomed woman had been speaking into was still
dangling from the pay phone in front of 77-02
Roosevelt Ave.
A trail of blood led from the phone to the curb.
Gonzalez said he remains haunted by what he
witnessed. "I can't believe this," he said. "I've never
seen this happen. I don't think I'm going to sleep
tonight."
Original Story Date: 061197
- - -
Sgts. grilled about assault
Reported by MICHAEL CLAFFEY, BILL
FARRELL,
MICHAEL FINNEGAN, MIGUEL GARCILAZO,
LAWRENCE GOODMAN, JOHN MARZULLI,
MICHELLE MCPHEE and ALICE MCQUILLAN
Written by CORKY SIEMASZKO
Daily News Staff Writers
Brooklyn cop was charged last night with
torturing and sodomizing a Haitian immigrant
with a toilet plunger in the bathroom of a Flatbush
police station.
The charges against Officer Justin Volpe were
announced as two sergeants from the 70th Precinct
were hauled in for questioning about their alleged
roles in the explosive case.
Victim Abner Louima told investigators Volpe was
"the guy who put the plunger up his rectum and then
inserted it in his mouth," said a high-ranking official
familiar with the investigation.
"He identified him from a photographic array," the
official said.
The arrest capped a day of dramatic developments
in the escalating investigation of the incident, which
raised the specter of cop brutality at a time when the
NYPD is trying to improve community relations.
Mayor Giuliani promised swift punishment of those
responsible for the alleged attack, and a man
arrested with Louima Saturday morning
corroborated key points of his version of events.
At the same time, Police Commissioner Howard
Safir said the department was eying "management
failures" at the precinct.
Volpe, 25, who has been on the force for four years,
was charged with first-degree aggravated sexual
abuse and first-degree assault, said Marilyn Mode, a
spokeswoman for Safir.
Volpe turned himself in to the Internal Affairs Bureau
last night.
Officer Thomas Bruder, who also was yanked from
duty Tuesday, is believed to have been one of the
cops who beat Louima on Saturday. But no charges
have been filed against the 31-year-old officer.
The sergeants, whose names were not made
available last night, were under fire for allegedly
looking the other way while Louima was being
sodomized, the official said.
While Louima told cops he didn't scream, the
downstairs bathroom where he allegedly was
violated is 20 feet from the front desk of the
stationhouse, and officials believe somebody must
have heard something.
The unimaginable brutality of the attack on the
30-year-old immigrant prompted some officers to
come forward with information.
"Some people are getting selective amnesia, but there
are some who are so repulsed by the act, they are
volunteering information," a high-ranking police
source said.
Louima's brother, Jonas, 25, said he was "satisfied at
least one person is arrested. But we would like to
see whoever is involved investigated and
suspended."
Volpe is the son of Robert Volpe, who was the
NYPD's art expert and wrote a book about his
experiences called "Art Cop."
Earlier, Louima's grief-wracked wife said she can't
understand why anyone would hurt her husband.
"He's a church man, he's a Christian," Micheline
Louima, 24, sobbed as she held the couple's baby
son, Abner Jr. "He's never been in trouble. As long
as I know him he's never been in trouble."
Mayor Giuliani, who visited the critically injured
Louima at his hospital bed, promised a thorough
investigation and labeled the cops' alleged actions
"reprehensible."
Others came forward to back up portions of
Louima's charges. Patrick Antoine, 36, said Louima
was already hurt when cops dragged him into a
holding cell early Saturday.
"There was a big lump on his head," Antoine said.
"His pants were undone — they actually fell down to
his ankles. He huddled like it was cold and later he
said, 'Please take me to the hospital.' "
Other developments included:
Officials agreed to drop the charge of assaulting a
police officer that landed Louima in custody. Earlier,
they uncuffed him from his hospital bed.
Officials said they will reinvestigate previous
complaints against Volpe and Bruder.
Haiti's ambassador to the United Nations, Pierre
Lelong, condemned the attack.
Marshall Trager, a lawyer for the Patrolmen's
Benevolent Association, said the union supports the
officers.
"They deny any wrongdoing," Trager said. "We're
confident once the matter is fully investigated, they
will be vindicated."
Earlier, Giuliani and Safir took the highly unusual step
of meeting Louima at Coney Island Hospital, where
he was in critical but stable condition after surgery to
repair a torn bladder and other internal injuries.
After the 15-minute visit, Giuliani told reporters he
told Louima "not to feel that because police officers
were involved the investigation would not be any less
intense."
Of Louima, Giuliani said, "He seemed like a very
dignified and very nice man."
"The alleged conduct involved is reprehensible, done
by anyone at any time," Giuliani said. "Allegedly done
by police officers, it's even more reprehensible."
The events that ended with the alleged torture began
around 4:30 a.m. Saturday, when Louima was
arrested for reportedly throwing punches at two
cops trying to quell a brawl outside a Brooklyn
nightclub called Rendez-Vous Palace.
Anthony Paz, 24, who lives in an apartment next
door, said he witnessed Louima's arrest and that he
saw the suspect push the cops.
"He was a little drunk, but he was standing," Paz
said. "No bruises, no anything."
In an interview with Daily News columnist Mike
McAlary, Louima described how four cops using
racial epithets kicked and repeatedly beat him with
their radios before driving him to the 70th Precinct
stationhouse in Flatbush.
There, according to Louima, he was strip-searched
at the duty sergeant's desk and then walked to the
bathroom, where he was sodomized in the anus and
mouth.
"One said, 'You niggers have to learn to respect
police officers,' " Louima told McAlary from his
hospital bed. "The other one said, 'If you yell or
make any noise, I will kill you.' "
Antoine, who said he was walking home when he
was beaten up and arrested by four white police
officers at Glenwood Road and Nostrand Ave.
around 4:30 a.m. Saturday, said he was taken with
Louima to the Coney Island Hospital emergency
room around 8 a.m.
"The other guy was in real bad shape," Antoine said.
"The ambulance crew had to help him up."
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who is seeking the Democrat
nomination for mayor, blamed Giuliani for creating a
climate in which police think they're untouchable.
But another possible mayoral challenger, Sal
Albanese, said Giuliani isn't to blame for this.
"If the allegations are true, this is beyond the pale,"
Albanese said. "If the police officers conducted
themselves in that fashion, they should be prosecuted
and they should be fired."
- - -
70th Pct. suspect: They brutalized me
By K.C. BAKER, LAWRENCE GOODMAN
and JOHN MARZULLI
Daily News Staff Writers
Two cops were yanked from active duty last
night as the NYPD and Brooklyn district
attorney furiously investigated charges the pair
sodomized a suspect with a plunger in a stationhouse
bathroom.
Alleged victim Abner Louima identified the cops in
an array of police mug shots taken to his bedside at
Coney Island Hospital, where he was listed in critical
condition, officials said.
Officers Justin Volpe and Thomas Bruder of
Flatbush's 70th Precinct were placed on modified
duty without their guns or badges.
Reached at his Long Island home, Bruder wasn't
doing much talking about Louima's accusations or
being taken off the job.
"I really have no comment," he said. "I don't know
what's going on."
Volpe could not be reached for comment, but his
father said he was shocked by the allegations.
Officials said more cops could be implicated.
Detectives from the Internal Affairs Bureau swarmed
over the stationhouse throughout the day, taking
crime-scene photos of the bathroom and seizing
several plungers that may have been used in the
attack, sources said.
The harrowing charge of a vicious attack within
stationhouse walls sparked a firestorm of outrage
from city officials, who vowed harsh and swift
punishment of the cops if Louima's story proves true.
"The allegations are shocking to any decent human
being," Mayor Giuliani said last night. "Every effort
will be made to investigate these allegations as
quickly and thoroughly as possible."
"The charges, if substantiated, should result in the
severest penalties, including substantial terms of
imprisonment and dismissal from the department," he
added.
Police Commissioner Howard Safir called Louima's
description of the attack "horrendous" in a statement
last night.
"If these allegations are true, these police officers will
be subject to dismissal and criminal prosecution,"
Safir said.
Law enforcement officials called Louima's account
credible.
They said his injuries, which include a punctured
bladder, did not appear self-inflicted.
"There will be a quick resolution, it's not a very
complicated case," one official said.
Louima, 30, who is married and has two children,
was arrested around 4:30 a.m. Saturday after he
allegedly threw punches at two cops trying to quell a
brawl between two women outside a club called the
Rendez-Vous Palace at Nostrand Ave. and
Glenwood Road.
Louima, a Queens resident who works as a guard in
Brooklyn, was charged with assault, resisting arrest,
obstructing government administration and disorderly
conduct.
Arrested on the same charges was Patrick Antoine,
36, of E. 35th St., Brooklyn.
In an interview with Daily News columnist Mike
McAlary, Louima said he was handcuffed, placed in
a radio car and driven to Nostrand and Flatbush
Aves., where he was beaten by the cops.
He said he was beaten again, then taken to the
stationhouse, where he was assaulted in the
bathroom after being stripped and called racist
names. He said he was sodomized with the plunger.
About 6 a.m. — 90 minutes after the arrest — cops
summoned an ambulance to the stationhouse.
Medics rushed Louima to the hospital, where he
underwent surgery. Louima told the medics about the
attack, and they notified the Police Department,
sources said.
Anthony Paz, 24, who lives in an apartment next
door to Rendez-Vous Palace, said he witnessed
Louima's arrest but saw no brutality.
"Two chicks were punching each other and calling
each other names, then the cops came and broke up
the fight. After that, I saw a black guy push one of
the cops," Paz said.
"Some words were exchanged, then a heavy cop
with muscles pushed the black guy back and they
arrested him. After they put the cuffs on him it
appeared the guy was struggling, so they had to push
him to the ground.
"But that was it. I can't believe they did anything to
him later."
Investigators yesterday were looking for anyone who
saw the fight outside the nightclub to determine
whether Louima was injured when he was taken into
custody.
"This office has been made aware of a serious
allegation of police brutality," Brooklyn District
Attorney Charles Hynes said.
"We are attempting to talk to all witnesses that have
information."
The block where Rendez-Vous Palace is located
was the scene of a wild fight two weeks ago
between mourners at a funeral and cops who were
writing tickets.
The potentially explosive case comes at a time when
Safir and Giuliani have been touting a 20% drop in
civilian complaints as proof that the NYPD's
Courtesy, Professionalism and Respect program is
working.
Outside the stationhouse last night, tight-lipped cops
grimly prepared for a media onslaught. "It's just an
allegation," one cop snapped.
A spokesman for the Patrolmen's Benevolent
Association did not return a call for comment.
In 1993, the same bathroom was the scene of a wild
shootout when a desperate career criminal, Danny
Cook, grabbed a cop's gun and opened fire. Cook
shot and critically wounded two cops, then killed
himself.
Original Story Date: 081397
- - -
By LAWRENCE GOODMAN and JOHN MARZULLI
Daily News Staff Writers
The Brooklyn district attorney is investigating
charges that a cop sodomized a Hasidic
teenager inside a radio car while his partner watched,
the Daily News has learned.
Meanwhile, the police Internal Affairs Bureau is also
looking into whether the cops' former commanding
officer at the 66th Precinct, Deputy Inspector
Salvatore Carcaterra, covered up the incident.
"All aspects of the complaint are being investigated,"
said NYPD spokeswoman Marilyn Mode.
Officers Christopher Condon, a six-year veteran,
and Marcus Williams, a five-year veteran, have been
stripped of their badges and guns. They worked the
midnight shift.
Sources said the alleged sex attack occurred in
December 1994 when the victim was 17 years old.
She was dating Condon and would meet him at a
dead-end street near 18th Ave. in Borough Park, the
sources said.
On the night of the attack, she got in the backseat of
the radio car and Williams allegedly exposed himself
and forced her to perform oral sex while Condon
looked on.
Several months later, the teen told a prominent
Brooklyn rabbi about the attack and he went to the
precinct with the girl.
The rabbi, who spoke on the condition that he not be
named, said he told Carcaterra there was a
"problem" with a cop. The rabbi said Carcaterra
referred him to the precinct's integrity lieutenant,
Jerry DiBlasio.
The rabbi said he took the victim to DiBlasio and
"she told him the whole story." DiBlasio, who could
not be reached for comment yesterday, reportedly
staked out the dead-end street where the teen was
supposed to meet Condon. He observed the radio
car arrive at the appointed time.
Both cops were transferred to other stations the next
day.
"[DiBlasio] called me and said, 'Tell her they're out,'
" the rabbi said.
While the victim did not want to make an official
complaint, Carcaterra and DiBlasio would have been
obligated to report serious misconduct to Internal
Affairs.
Carcaterra, now the commander of the office of
deputy commissioner of operations, has been
recently questioned under oath about his handling of
the case, sources said. DiBlasio retired last year on a
tax-free disability pension.
Yesterday, Carcaterra denied that the rabbi ever
spoke to him about the incident and refused to say
why he abruptly transferred the cops."I know that I
have no problem," he said.
Several months ago the IAB received information
about the alleged attack and notified the district
attorney's office. The victim has spoken to
prosecutors, and the case will likely be presented to
a grand jury, sources said.
The 66th Precinct case is the latest sex scandal to
rock the NYPD. Last week, a cop was arrested for
having sex with a 12-year-old girl he was tutoring in
Queens. A Brooklyn cop is also under investigation
for sexually assaulting a female prisoner at the 79th
Precinct.
Original Story Date: 082197
- - -
By DON SINGLETON
Daily News Staff Writer
An off-duty police sergeant was shot to death in
his car on a Queens street corner early
yesterday, moments after fleeing the scene of an
accident, police sources said.
The dead officer, Sgt. Walker Fitzgerald, 28, of the
42d Precinct in the Bronx, was found at 1:56 a.m. in
Jackson Heights, shot at least once in the head,
according to police spokesman Arek Tarih.
Police sources said Fitzgerald, a cop since 1990,
had been ejected from a topless bar earlier in the
evening and may have been involved in a dispute
outside another bar before driving off in his Chevy
Blazer and colliding with a livery cab at 99th St. and
Northern Blvd.
The sources said the cab driver used his radio to call
his dispatcher, who reported the accident to 911.
Other cab drivers reportedly heard the call and
responded to the accident scene, at least one of them
armed with a bat, the sources said.
Detectives yesterday were trying to identify and
question the other drivers from the Cibao Car
Service, as well as two individuals seen leaving the
scene of the accident on foot.
When officers arrived to investigate, they found
Fitzgerald slumped in the Blazer at 99th St. and 32d
Ave., his holster on the car's floor and his pistol
missing, sources said.
The detectives were trying to determine whether
there had been a passenger in Fitzgerald's car at the
time of the accident, the sources said.
"He always wanted to be a cop. He was a hell of a
cop," said Jim Robert, a long-time friend of the
family who commanded Fitzgerald's platoon at
Midtown South when Fitzgerald was a rookie.
Robert said Fitzgerald, who attended Texas A&M
University, was "studious and scholarly."
A neighbor who has known Fitzgerald, his two
brothers and their parents for 20 years, described
the slain police officer as a helpful, unassuming young
man. "He was a gentleman, a good neighbor," said
John Turney, 55, a city worker who lives on the
same block as the Fitzgeralds in Pelham,
Westchester County.
The death of Fitzgerald was the second shooting of a
city cop in less than an hour early yesterday.
Police Officer Willis Stough, 27, was shot in the right
shoulder at 1:13 a.m. on a second-floor landing of a
three-family house in Brooklyn at Avenue J and 85th
St. in Canarsie, police said.
A suspect, Daniel America, 23, of 580 Flatbush
Ave., was charged with attempted murder,
first-degree assault and possession of a weapon - a
.25-caliber handgun found at the shooting scene,
according to police spokeswoman Kathleen Kelly.
Stough, who was in critical but stable condition at
Kings County Hospital yesterday, was suspended
from the Police Department at 1:30 p.m., Kelly said.
Sources said he had given investigating officers
conflicting accounts of the shooting.
Original Story Date: 090797
- - -
By PETE DONOHUE, MIKE CLAFFEY
and MIGUEL GARCILAZO
Daily News Staff Writers
The Police Department, already reeling from
accusations of the brutal sexual torture of a
prisoner, was hit with two more black eyes
yesterday when two cops were arrested in unrelated
sexual assaults.
In one case, a 27-year-old Brooklyn transit
policeman was locked up after being accused of
sodomizing a female officer while on duty early
yesterday, police officials said last night.
In the second case, a married Brooklyn housing cop
who lives in Queens was charged with repeatedly
having sex with a 14-year-old school girl whose
father had asked the cop to tutor her.
"The father thought the cop would be a good role
model, a good tutor," a law enforcement source said.
The case against Transit Officer Randy Thomas of
District 32 came together quickly after a cop told a
supervisor that he had forcibly sodomized her about
4 a.m. yesterday.
Investigators from the Internal Affairs Bureau and the
Brooklyn district attorney's office spent the day
examining the tiny underground room at the Van
Siclen Ave. station on the No. 3 line where the
attack allegedly occurred.
The area was roped off with crime-scene tape, and
the door was covered with fingerprinting dust.
Thomas, who joined the force in 1993 and is
6-feet-1 and 260 pounds, was arrested and
suspended at 6 p.m. yesterday.
Also yesterday, Internal Affairs investigators and the
Queens district attorney's office brought rape
charges against Officer Harry Velasquez, 27, for
allegedly having sex with the school girl.
Investigators said the girl's father, thinking the cop
would be a good role model, asked the officer to
help her with her reading because she was having a
tough time in school.
Instead, the cop is accused of taking advantage of
the girl, who was 12 at the time the alleged sex
attacks started.
Velasquez, who has been on the job two years, did
not use a weapon or force but was charged with
rape because the law deems a minor under 14
unable to give consent, officials said. Velasquez also
was charged with sodomy and endangering the
welfare of a child. He was suspended.
The girl went to Velasquez' home in Jamaica after
school and allegedly was assaulted while the cop's
wife was at work.
The assaults took place weekly over the past 18
months, officials said.
The girl recently tried to end the sexual activity, cops
said, but Velasquez started lurking around her
school. This prompted her to report the attacks to
her mother.
"She got really scared," a source said.
Original Story Date: 081597
- - -
Scarred, he holds torch high
Frank Serpico still bears the scar, a fleshy ridge
that runs along his neck, barely visible amid his
hairy camouflage, that full white beard and bushy
ponytail.
The wound was inflicted Feb. 3,
1971, during Serpico's days as a
narcotics cop, an assignment that
followed his days as a whistleblower.
Serpico exposed the prevalent police
corruption of the day: graft. That didn't win him many
friends on the job. As he's quick to remind anyone
who'd listen; no cops called for help the night he was
shot.
Serpico remains the most famous cop in history of
the NYPD, one whose celebrity was sanctified by Al
Pacino's portrayal in the movie. And a quarter
century later, you can't help but think that the City
Council committee members, in their own lust for
attention, would rather have had Pacino testifying
yesterday in favor of their Independent Police
Investigation and Audit Board.
There's no doubting Serpico's heroism. But to hear
him was to wonder what other scars he bears.
"Citizen Serpico," as he introduced himself, wore
cowboy boots, a denim shirt and an old three-piece
suit. He brought the biography bearing his name, and
a set of curious, conspiratorial beliefs. He doesn't
have a job, unless you consider amateur philosophy
a vocation. Serpico sees every small corruption
nourishing the big corruption. He also has scores to
settle. In all, his scheme of the world is difficult to
follow.
He began by citing Thomas Paine as "one of my
famous role models." Then he's on to crimes
committed by "our glorious FBI" who made him "flee
Switzerland naked in the snow." He says he's also
been harassed by customs agents, and more
recently, by a uniformed city cop who "threatened to
tear my car apart, piece by piece."
"Perhaps my hair was a bit too long for his taste," he
said.
Now Serpico quotes from Raymond Chandler, the
great mystery writer. The reference has something to
do with his anger toward New York's chief judge,
who invited a former chief judge, who did time for
harassing his lover, to some ceremony for judges.
Oblivious to the age of today's patrolmen, the
61-year-old Serpico tries to account for some of the
brutality by saying: "You have men who have served
in Vietnam. They have been trained as killers."
There is not enough time for Serpico to right
everything wrong. He's still furious with cops who
failed to call in a 10-13 when he was shot. He's still
angry at the ex-police commissioner, this old, balding
man named Patrick Murphy, who was waiting to
address the Council.
"He never once spoke to me in person," said
Serpico. "But he wrote a book in which he tried to
undermine my credibility. Commissioner, why did
you avoid me like the plague?"
Of course, the world's most famous cop also is
offended by the President. Serpico had written to Bill
Clinton, urging him to bestow a medal upon Sgt.
Joseph Trimboli, who as an internal affairs
investigator spent years dogging a corrupt cop,
Michael Dowd.
But Clinton didn't do the right thing.
"What kind of message does that
send?" he asked.
Meanwhile, the members of the Governmental
Operations Committee were eating it up. They know
that Serpico, who most people confuse with Pacino,
is all for the independent board. More than that, his
appearance enables the members to nod nods of
grave concern, to make speeches of their questions
and to sprinkle such speeches with that great word
of the day, "pro-active."
The only real question was raised by a convicted
felon, Councilman Israel Ruiz. He wanted to know
how this board — a handful of investigators
investigating a 35,000-member department — could
do meaningful work on a $1 million budget and
without the power to grant immunity.
But never mind all that. The proceedings had to
proceed. The next witness was Serpico pal Joseph
Trimboli.
"Today, I go by the title the Rev. Joseph Trimboli,"
he said by way of clarification.
The former internal affairs cop seemed to be saying
that racism is evil and pervasive. But he didn't say it
like that. Instead, he issued a series of tortured
phrases: "change that acknowledges a truth . . . the
melting pot that binds the mosaic of our citizenry . . .
a much more sinister and cunning demon at work
here . . . smolders the fires of our spirit . . . disavow
the storm that was already upon them . . . our
collective sin . . . sadly these thoughts have spun their
webs in our civil servants . . . I submit to you learned
people. . . ."
You had to wonder about those learned people of
the Council. Do they understand these men who
testified? Do they know how wounded are the
whistleblowers?
Original Story Date: 092497
- - -
By JOHN MARZULLI
Daily News Staff Writer
Police are investigating a Brooklyn woman's
charges that a 70th Precinct cop brutalized her
69-year-old husband, authorities said yesterday.
Mario Saccavino suffered a broken hip during a
confrontation with police Monday night outside his
home on E. 13th St. His wife, Joyce, 55, and a
neighbor were embroiled in a long-running dispute
over the neighbor's dogs when cops arrived.
"The cop started yelling from the time he stepped out
of his car and threw [Joyce Saccavino] on the car,"
said the Saccavinos' tenant, Gerard Demeglio, 28.
"When her husband went over to find out why she
was being arrested, the cop, with both palms of his
hands, hit the man in the chest and knocked him to
the ground."
Mario Saccavino was in stable condition at
Maimonides Medical Center. Joyce Saccavino was
charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.
A police spokesman, Deputy Inspector Michael
Collins, said the arresting officer, Vincent
Decrescento, put his arm out to prevent Saccavino
from interfering in the arrest of his wife.
"The exact circumstances remain under
investigation," Collins added.
Original Story Date: 090397
- - -
Francis Livoti, the disgraced ex-cop from the
Bronx, finally went to jail yesterday for
assaulting a civilian.
But the courts and the Police
Department have yet to touch the
deeper problem Livoti's sordid history
represents.
Ask Derek Sutton, a 10-year veteran
of the NYPD who goes on departmental trial
Monday for what he alleges was his attempt to stop
police abuse.
Sutton, who is assigned to the 63d Precinct in
Brooklyn, was off duty about 11:30 p.m. on June
17, 1996, when he walked out of his family home on
198th St. in St. Albans, Queens, and started to drive
to his girlfriend's house.
He noticed a patrol car up the street blocking his
way. In the car were Sgt. Michael Schoonmaker and
Police Officer Michael Maresca of the 113th
Precinct.
In statements to Internal Affairs Bureau investigators
and in court testimony, Sutton said he watched the
two uniformed cops approach a man and woman
talking on the sidewalk.
Sutton recognized the woman, Bedilia Russell, a
neighbor. He did not know the man, Jens Nerestant,
but had seen him around the neighborhood.
Nerestant is a Haitian immigrant who manages a car
rental outlet on Long Island and lives nearby.
Sutton alleges he witnessed the following events:
Sgt. Schoonmaker yelled to Nerestant "what the f---
he had in his hands." Nerestant, who was carrying a
brown paper bag, replied that it was an unopened
beer bottle. Schoonmaker got out of the patrol car,
grabbed the paper bag, pulled out the bottle, opened
it and poured the beer onto the ground.
The sergeant then ordered Maresca to write
Nerestant a summons for drinking alcohol in public.
When Nerestant and the woman began protesting,
Schoonmaker responded: "Shut the f--- up. I ask the
questions, not you."
Sutton charged that he got out of his car, fearing the
incident was about to escalate, walked up to the
uniformed cops, flashed his police shield and ID card
and identified himself as a cop who lived on the
block.
He said he asked if he could speak privately with the
sergeant.
Schoonmaker, Sutton said, immediately yelled, "Get
the f--- back in your car and mind your f---ing
business. You haven't seen nothing." When Sutton
questioned his reaction, he said Schoonmaker
punched him in the chest and grabbed his shield and
police identification.
Schoonmaker then called for police backup. When
dozens of cops arrived, he ordered Nerestant
arrested for assault, obstructing governmental
administration, disorderly conduct and harassment,
and told Sutton he was suspended. According to
Sutton, the cops who arrived began kicking and
beating Nerestant as they arrested him.
Schoonmaker's account is quite different. On his
official statement to Internal Affairs investigators, he
said that he witnessed Nerestant drinking an open
bottle of beer. When he issued Nerestant a
summons, Sutton appeared to flash "some type of
badge" and asked to speak to him. Schoonmaker
says he then walked back to Sutton's car and
explained what he was doing.
"He [Sutton] then told me that I was not issuing any
summonses on his block," Schoonmaker said.
Schoonmaker claims that he demanded to see
Sutton's identification, and that Sutton resisted,
pushed him away and incited a hostile crowd against
the police.
The other cop, Maresca, said that Sutton told
uniformed cops, "What do you think, you can't do
that to my homeboy [Nerestant]. I'm a cop."
During Nerestant's criminal trial last March, Maresca
was asked about the bruises Nerestant sustained.
Maresca testified that Nerestant banged his head and
body against the window of the patrol car en route to
the stationhouse.
Several cops who responded later supported the
account of Maresca and Schoonmaker. But Phyllis
Gaines, a nursing assistant who lives on the block
and was just arriving from work, confirmed Sutton's
version, as did his mother and father, and several
other neighbors.
In Nerestant's nonjury trial, Criminal Court Judge
Stephen Knopf dismissed all charges, blasting what
he called a "total overreaction by the police." Knopf
said he had never seen a trial with "more disputed
credibility than this," and characterized the case as
"flowing with doubt."
"I am not going to start giving a whole discussion on
racial politics in this city — okay, we all know the
racial component in this case," Knopf said in his
decision.
'It was a black officer second-guessing a white
sergeant."
Despite the judge's decision, the NYPD, having
already suspended Sutton for 30 days without pay
and placing him on modified assignment for a year,
will now try him for insubordination.
Is this how the NYPD treats cops who stand up to
abuse of civilians?
Original Story Date: 100297
- - -
By SALVATORE ARENA
Daily News Staff Writer
A state appeals court yesterday reinstated a
murder indictment against a Bronx cop in the
murky shooting death of a former Irish underground
fighter.
The four-judge Appellate Division panel unanimously
tossed out a lower court decision and ruled that there
was enough evidence to support the prosecution's
theory that Richard Molloy, a cop since 1986, was
bullying Patrick (Hessy) Phelan with the gun when it
discharged.
"Where the truth lies properly presents a choice for a
petit jury," said Justice Richard Wallach, who wrote
the court's opinion. "That kind of determination is not
to be made by the court . . . prior to trial."
The Jan. 21, 1996, shooting occurred when the
42nd Precinct cop was off-duty and alone with
Phelan in a Bronx apartment after the two men left
The Oak Bar on E. 206th St.
Molloy said a distraught Phelan, 39, who spent 10
years in a political prison in Northern Ireland,
grabbed Molloy's service revolver from his holster
and shot himself in the face.
Phelan's sister, Martina Boback, said family
members here and in Northern Ireland were
delighted by the ruling.
"It's fantastic news," Boback said. "We stand firm
that Hessy did not kill himself."
Bronx Supreme Court Justice Lawrence Tonetti
threw out the indictment in April, saying prosecutors
lacked the evidence to support their charge of
reckless murder.
Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson said he
hoped the ruling "will be of some solace to the family
of the deceased as we attempt to bring Richard
Molloy to justice."
Martin Galvin, an attorney for the Phelan family, said
the ruling reassures the Irish community that Molloy
is not getting special treatment because he is a cop.
"It means that Mr. Molloy will have to face justice in
a Bronx courtroom for what he did to Hessy
Phelan," Galvin said.
Molloy's attorney, Louis Rosenthal, said the cop,
who has been on modified duty, will fight to prove
his innocence.
"If we don't get [permission] to appeal, then we will
prepare for trial," he said. "There is absolutely
reasonable doubt as to how this happened."
Original Story Date: 111497
- - -
By AUSTIN FENNER
Daily News Staff Writer
Keeping and often struggling for control, a
parade of witnesses told a congressional
hearing on police brutality yesterday about violent
encounters with city cops.
"I'm very grateful justice was served," said witness
Vanessa Maldonado, who gripped the lectern in the
auditorium at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn as
she struggled to maintain her composure.
Maldonado's fiance, Charles Campbell, was shot to
death by off-duty New York City Police Officer
Richard DiGuglielmo in a dispute over a parking
space in Dobbs Ferry in Westchester.
DiGuglielmo was convicted last month of murder in
the killing.
"He's the first New York City police officer
convicted of slaying a black or Latino person,"
Maldonado testified. "This could have been
prevented if something was done about police
brutality years ago."
The hearings - which were snubbed by Mayor
Giuliani and Police Commissioner Howard Safir -
were spurred by last summer's attack on Haitian
immigrant Abner Louima, allegedly by officers in
Brooklyn's 70th Precinct stationhouse.
The absence of Giuliani and Safir drew sarcasm and
criticism from several congressmen, including Reps.
Donald Payne (D-N.J.) and Jose Serrano
(D-Bronx).
"Unfortunately, our mayor does not consider these
hearings official," Serrano said. "The last time I
looked, the pin that I wear on my lapel made me an
official member of Congress."
More than 20 witnesses told of personal encounters
with alleged police brutality. The hearing was held by
Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and also was
attended by Reps. Nydia Velazquez and Major
Owens (D-Brooklyn), among other members of
Congress.
Louima's cousin Samuel Nicholas testified on his
behalf.
"We have had task forces and studies, and the
problem still exists. We don't need another study, we
need answers, we want a solution," Nicholas said.
Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Zachary Carter also testified
before the crowd of about 700. Many carried signs
and placards calling for an end to police brutality and
heckled Carter as he called on the community to "get
beyond the rhetoric" and help officials with the "hard,
sometimes tedious" investigations.
Original Story Date: 111997
- - -
Last Feb. 13, two teenagers were shot by
police in Harlem. Robert Reynoso, then 18,
was critically wounded, shot through the chest. His
friend Juval Green, then 17, took a slug in the leg.
Though a police witness said he saw
one of the teens running with a small
silver gun, an exhaustive search
recovered no weapon. In all, 13 shots
were fired, all from Police
Department-issued Smith & Wesson 9-mms.
As the details provided by the NYPD's public
information office were woefully incomplete, it was
another two weeks before the story broke, as it
happened, in The Times. At that point, Manhattan
District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said, "The
matter is under intensive investigation. . . . We're
going to get to the bottom of this. It takes time."
But 11 months later, the district attorney has yet to
convene a grand jury. "No one seems to care," says
attorney Monica Eskin, who represents the teenagers
with her husband, David. "It's like they're waiting for
this to go away."
"We're nearing the end of our investigation," a
spokeswoman for the district attorney said
yesterday. "The practical reality is that these things
take time. What's important is that we not sacrifice
quality, and that the investigation is thorough."
But a quality investigation, especially as it concerns a
controversial police shooting, is also a timely one.
And with all due respect for Morgenthau's office, the
envy of other prosecutors, 11 months is too long. It
doesn't seem fair to the victims, or the cops, each of
whom has been decorated for distinguished service.
Finally, it doesn't do much to dispel the notion that
criminal justice is a little less just for people in poor
neighborhoods, especially when their cases don't
become causes in the press.
By contrast, two of the most complicated and
controversial police shootings of recent years were
resolved in months. Kiko Garcia, a drug dealer
whose death incited riots in Washington Heights, was
killed July 3, 1992. Two months later, a grand jury
issued a 45-page report exonerating the cop who
shot him and refuting the preposterous allegations
against him.
Last April 6, a teenager named Kevin Cedeno was
mortally wounded by a police officer who, in a split
second, thought Cedeno's black metal machete was
a sawed-off shotgun. That cop was cleared by a
grand jury July 1.
Maybe the cops in the Harlem case, like the others,
have a perfectly good explanation. And maybe
people sitting behind desks shouldn't make
judgments on people who work in the midst of
gunfire. But the facts here are clearly cause for
concern:
Reynoso and Green hear gunfire and fear someone
might be shooting at them, not an unreasonable
assumption after 11 p.m. at 135th St. and
Broadway. They begin to run uptown on Broadway.
A team of narcotics officers, who've already made
one gun collar that evening, get the call.
A cop tells the others that one of the kids is running
with a small silver gun. Officers Frank Servedio, with
five medals for excellent police duty, and Jose
Borrero, who has earned a Police Combat Cross,
catch up with the kids between 137th and 138th Sts.
They get out of their unmarked car and draw their
guns.
Living uptown, Reynoso and Green, each with a
previous arrest for trespassing, say they know the
drill. They say they put their hands up.
A police report makes no mention of that. It says,
"P.O. Servedio discharged six rounds and P.O.
Borrero discharged seven rounds at two of the males
who menaced them with firearms."
The problem, as the report attests, is that "there were
no shots fired at the officers and the weapons which
menaced the officers were not recovered." Of the 13
bullets, one travels through Reynoso's lung, exiting
his back. Another hits Green in the leg.
Green says he asked a cop, "Yo, why'd you shoot
me?"
He says the cop told him, "Shut the f--k up, or I'll
shoot you again."
Green and Reynoso, who lost consciousness, were
charged with menacing and weapons possession. But
as the search — which included a perusal of
mailboxes — uncovered no weapon, the charges
were dropped the next day.
Eleven months later, the cops remain on active duty.
But the kids aren't in such good shape.
David Eskin, who took the case at the request of a
retired detective, says, "Robert Reynoso is still in
terrible, terrible shape. There was damage to his
esophagus, which gets blocked periodically, and
damage to his voice box. He has circulation
problems, and as far as neurological damage, his
eyelid droops. He requires physical therapy, speech
therapy and psychological therapy. He's basically
afraid to go outside, afraid to take public
transportation."
As for Green, a department store stock clerk, Eskin
says the incident left him with a couple of screws in
his leg and recurring nightmares.
As the months passed, says Eskin, "[The district
attorney] always said there would be a grand jury
investigation. First it was supposed to be in August.
Then they said probably October. But it keeps
getting delayed."
In the meantime, Eskin has been speaking to the
FBI, who says that agents in the civil rights division
are "surprised and disappointed" at the slow pace of
the district attorney's investigation.
The feds, who began a preliminary inquiry back in
February, won't launch a full investigation until the
district attorney's is completed.
Eleven months is a long time, too long. Maybe a few
headlines would have helped.
Original Story Date: 011498
- - -
Bronx narcotics cop was suspended yesterday
for allegedly firing his gun during an argument
at a crowded Bronx party last month, law
enforcement sources said.
Detective Traun Covington, a seven-year veteran,
was ordered to turn in his badge and gun while the
Internal Affairs Bureau investigation into the off-duty
shooting was completed, police said.
Sources said a second cop could also face
departmental charges, but police officials would not
comment on the incident because it was still under
investigation.
11-5-97
==========
- - -
By SALVATORE ARENA
Daily News Staff Writer
A female police sergeant who charges a male
cop watched her undress in the women's
locker room through a peephole filed a sexual
harassment suit yesterday against the Police
Department.
Sgt. Jill Turchi charged that the Peeping Tom
incidents capped a year-long pattern of harassment
by superiors at the NYPD's Traffic Control Division
in Manhattan.
The alleged voyeur, Lt. Harry Coleman, was
transferred to a Bronx precinct last year, though no
disciplinary charges were filed against him.
Turchi, 32, said Coleman peered through "gaping
holes" created during a renovation project to enlarge
an adjacent men's locker room at the stationhouse on
W. 30th St.
Coleman's spying began in February 1996,
according to Turchi's complaint. It continued through
the following September, when the Internal Affairs
Bureau received an anonymous complaint and
launched an investigation.
Her direct complaints about the locker room
harassment had been ignored by a commander, who
"admonished" and "ridiculed" her, she said.
According to the suit, Turchi, a cop since 1987, had
been harassed by another boss soon after she was
assigned to the division in September 1995.
Lt. William Cosgrove allegedly subjected her to
"sexual harassment, sexual innuendos, demeaning
sexual verbal conduct and abuse" as well as
discrimination, undue, harsh and unnecessary
supervision and public embarrassment in front of
other cops, she said.
"He was hitting on her and wanted to date her," said
Turchi's attorney, Jeffrey Goldberg. "It made her
very, very uncomfortable."
Goldberg said Turchi complained about Cosgrove's
behavior too, but to no avail.
A Police Department spokesman declined comment
on the suit, which seeks unspecified damages from
the city. Neither Coleman nor Cosgrove is named as
a defendant.
"It was outrageous conduct by police supervisors
who should have known better," Goldberg said. He
said Turchi fears the lawsuit could hurt her career but
hopes it will help prevent harassment of other female
cops.
Original Story Date: 120497
- - -
civilians hit first
Dr. Carlos Acosta had just walked out of
afternoon Sunday services at St. Matthew
Lutheran Church in Inwood when he
spotted his fiance, Espana Aristy,
double-parked on Sherman Ave.
waiting to pick him up.
This was around 6 p.m. on Nov. 30,
and Acosta, a neighborhood dentist and church
elder, noticed that a police cruiser had pulled up
behind Aristy's 1989 Mazda.
"I told Espana to pull up the street a little," Acosta
said, "when I noticed they were writing her a parking
ticket."
What followed, says the couple, was a parking
dispute that turned into a nightmare of police terror
on the street and torture in the 34th Precinct
bathrooms.
Some Hispanic leaders are calling it Abner Louima
II.
Unlike the Louima case, however, police brass are
discounting the allegations. This time, the cops
involved claim they were the real victims of assault.
Acosta said he walked up to the police cruiser when
they were writing the ticket and asked: "Why are you
doing that? She was sitting in the car, and her
flashers were on."
"The male cop yelled at me, 'Get away from the car.'
When I asked him again what he was doing, he got
out and told me I was under arrest."
Acosta said he then asked what the charge was.
"As soon as I said that, he grabbed his police radio,
hit me in the face with it, threw me against his car and
began to bang my face into it."
Aristy said she got out of the car when she saw both
cops pummeling Acosta and started to scream at
them to let him go.
"The woman cop turned to me, grabbed me by my
hair, began to bang my face against the car and
handcuffed me," Aristy said.
The account of the two cops, Joseph Holmes and
Andrea Dinella, is completely different.
In their complaint, the cops claim that Acosta tried to
prevent their writing the ticket and, "defendant
grabbed informant's [Holmes'] arm and began
repeatedly punching informant." Further, says the
complaint, Acosta and Holmes fell onto the hood of
the police car, causing Holmes to "sustain swelling
and a sprain to this left knee and swelling a sprain to
his right hand requiring medical attention."
Attempts to reach the two officers last night were not
successful.
Aristy and Acosta claim they were thrown into
separate police cars and beaten by cops on the way
to the precinct.
But the most amazing part of their story is what they
say happened at the stationhouse.
Acosta, 43, says that cops there handed him back to
Holmes, who escorted him, still handcuffed, into the
bathroom. There, he alleges, Holmes ripped his shirt,
ripped down his pants and punched him repeatedly
in his testicles.
"Finally, another cop came by and told him [Holmes]
to take it easy with me. So he brought me back to
the cell."
Aristy said she also was escorted by Dinella into a
bathroom, and the female cop shoved her face into
the bathroom wall several times.
Yesterday, nine days after the incident, both of them
still show bruises on their faces from their injuries.
Eventually, they say, Acosta was tossed into a cell at
the stationhouse and Aristy was handcuffed to a
chair near the cell. Aristy claims she kept begging the
cops to call an ambulance for Acosta, who by then
had collapsed in his cell, but they refused.
"When they left me alone in the room, I managed to
reach a pay phone with my free hand and I called
911 myself and told them there was a man in the
34th Precinct who needed an ambulance."
Emergency Medical Service officials say they
received two calls that night to respond to the 34th
Precinct for injured prisoners, one at 6:45 p.m. and
the other at 9:30 p.m., and transported both inmates
to Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center for
"noncritical" injuries. But those records do not show
the names of those transported.
According to Acosta, when the EMS technicians
escorted him to the ambulance, his pants were still
down at his ankles and cops at the precinct would
not allow them to pick up the pants. He was forced
to enter the ambulance and walk into the emergency
room handcuffed and with his pants at his knees.
"I kept telling them, I'm a dentist, why are you doing
this to me?" he said. "They just laughed and said, 'A
dentist, sure. You're nothing but a drug dealer.' "
"If this is how cops treat professional, law-abiding
people, imagine what they're doing to others on the
street," their lawyer, Fernando Oliver, said
yesterday.
The couple's story has led to angry headlines in the
Spanish-language press and in their native Dominican
Republic, and Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat is
demanding a full investigation and the arrests of the
cops involved.
Acosta and Aristy filed a charge against the cops
with the Civilian Complaint Review Board last week,
and Internal Affairs has begun reviewing the case.
Original Story Date: 121097
- - -
Reno gives OK in city case
Attorney General Janet Reno yesterday gave
Manhattan federal prosecutors permission to
seek the death penalty for a former New York city
cop.
It is the first time in 70 years one of New York's
Finest faces the electric chair.
John Cuff, a city housing cop from 1981 through
1986, is charged with eight murders and has
allegedly confessed to a ninth, all committed while he
reportedly acted as an enforcer for a reputed
Harlem-based drug dealer, Clarence (The Preacher)
Heatley.
Heatley has been a major drug dealer in Harlem and
the Bronx since 1983, with a reputation for violence,
prosecutors said.
Cuff was charged last year in a 54-count indictment.
While still on the Housing Police Department payroll,
Cuff allegedly worked as a driver for Heatley,
sometimes even flashing his police badge if cops
stopped his car, investigators say.
But Cuff's attorney, Irving Cohen, said: "We do not
believe this is a federal death penalty case based on
the allegation and the evidence. We firmly believe
that no death penalty will be imposed when this case
is over."
Investigators said Cuff, who became a housing cop
in 1981, grew up with Heatley's subordinates and
was known as "Big Cuz" on the street.
Cuff left the police in 1986 and became one of
Heatley's top lieutenants, prosecutors said. NYPD
officials were unable to explain why Cuff left,
although investigators say he was under investigation
for his alleged role in a robbery.
From December 1993 to June 1994, Cuff
participated in eight murders, according to court
papers filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sharon
McCarthy.
On Heatley's orders, Cuff allegedly lured Anthony
(Malik) Boatwright to a Grand Concourse apartment
building basement on March 21, 1994 and shot him
in the head, prosecutors charge.
Cuff then allegedly supervised while his underlings
cut Boatwright's body up with a circular saw. Cuff
allegedly personally burned Boatwright's arms and
head and tossed them into an abandoned building in
Harlem.
Heatley also faces murder charges. His trial is
pending.
The last cop to face the death penalty, Daniel
(Handsome Dan) Graham, was electrocuted in Sing
Sing on Aug. 9, 1928.
Original Story Date: 121897
- - -
allegedly killed unarmed man on Christmas
Reported by JOHN MARZULLI,
CAROLINA GONZALEZ, LAWRENCE GOODMAN
and JAMES RUTENBERG
Written by DON SINGLETON
Daily News Staff
Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes has
launched a grand jury investigation into
whether criminal charges should be filed against a
cop who killed an unarmed man Christmas Day.
Police Officer Michael Davitt shot William Whitfield,
22, in the Milky Way Grocery at 1669 Ralph Ave. in
Brooklyn — the ninth time Davitt has fired his
weapon in his 15-year career.
Acknowledging that most officers never fire their
weapons, police officials said all Davitt's shootings
were determined to be within department guidelines.
"I have to leave it to the Police Department and a
grand jury to investigate it," Mayor Giuliani said.
"Nobody knows all the facts yet."
Davitt's shootings, which date to 1983, wounded
two people. During his first month on the force,
officials said, he fired a weapon while off duty,
wounding a man in the knee.
He also fired his gun in 1985, 1988, 1989, 1992 and
twice in 1994, and he reported an accidental
discharge of the weapon in June 1995.
In the July 1994 shooting, Davitt opened fire on a
robbery suspect in Coney Island who was holding a
"dark object" in his hand. The object turned out to
be a wrist watch. Davitt later told investigators he
fired his gun accidentally.
Davitt, who has been placed on modified duty, has
not offered his version of what happened Thursday;
a provision in the police contract gives officers who
shoot someone 48 hours before they must speak to
investigators.
According to official police sources, Whitfield
ducked into the store after Davitt, 36, and his
partner, Officer Michael Dugan, responding to a
radio report of gunshots nearby on Avenue H, saw
Whitfield running with an object in one hand and
ordered him to stop.
The cops said they blocked the door and ordered
the workers and customers to leave or lie on the
floor. The officers yelled at Whitfield, whom they
could not see, telling him to drop what he was
carrying, but Whitfield tried to elude the cops by
circling the left rear area of the grocery, sources said.
Dugan told investigators he then saw Whitfield move
into the last aisle and come face to face with Davitt,
6 feet away. Dugan said Whitfield "suddenly raised
up from a crouching position and had a black object
in his right hand."
Davitt, using his 9-mm. Glock service weapon, shot
Whitfield in the upper right chest. The slug
exitedWhitfield's lower back. He fell, mortally
wounded, and was pronounced dead soon afterward
at Brookdale Hospital.
Investigators found no gun but did recover a set of
keys on a long strap, police spokeswoman Marilyn
Mode said.
Whitfield's uncle Farquhar Whitfield, 41, said
yesterday afternoon that the family believes the
police shot in error.
"It's common sense," he said. "No gun, no bullet
shells, there was no problem. He shot for nothing."
Willie Mae Whitfield said a cop at the hospital told
family members that her grandson had been carrying
a brown bag holding a container of milk when he
was shot.
Police said there were no civilian witnesses to the
shooting; everyone in the store was lying on the floor.
Eva Perez, 41, who lives nearby in the Glenwood
Houses, said she was in the store when Whitfield and
the cops ran in. She said Whitfield ran toward the
back of the store and that one of the cops squatted
at the door with his pistol in his hand, shouting: "We
got him! Everyone out of the store!"
Perez said she saw Candy Williams standing across
the street from the store with their year-old son,
William Whitfield Jr.
Williams said she had been waiting for Whitfield to
return from the store, Perez said.
"She said they were on their way to his mother's
house for Christmas dinner," Perez said.
Davitt and Dugan were treated for trauma at Kings
County Hospital after the shooting.
City officials said Whitfield was arrested on assault
charges July 30, on robbery charges Feb. 4 and for
allegedly resisting arrest in September 1996.
Dispositions of those cases were not available, the
officials said. He also was arrested Sept. 23 in
Pittsburgh on a drug charge, the officials said.
Original Story Date: 122797
- - -
Officer who shot man isn't questioned
By HENRI E. CAUVIN
Daily News Staff Writer
Facing a storm of criticism, police and
prosecutors yesterday defended their decision
to hold off questioning the cop who fatally shot an
unarmed man in Brooklyn last week.
Law enforcement officials said that moving too
quickly could complicate and jeopardize a possible
case against Officer Michael Davitt, who shot and
killed William Whitfield, 22, in a Canarsie grocery
store on Christmas Day.
But authorities' explanation proved little comfort to
the man's family and supporters, who attended a
memorial service and a rally yesterday.
"I just want justice for my grandson," his
grandmother, Willie Mae Whitfield, told about 50
friends and supporters at the memorial.
Officer James Davis, founder of a local anti-violence
group, said Davitt - who has fired his gun eight
times in 15 years as a cop - shouldn't have been on
the street. "Who saw fit to allow this officer to patrol
our community?" he asked.
At the rally, held later at the Ralph Ave. store where
Whitfield was shot, the Rev. Al Sharpton said the
dead man's family had every right to press the city
for answers.
"It is absurd to me for the city to try to act as if
they're being less than patient when they have a
funeral Wednesday, a dead relative and a police
officer who doesn't even have to speak," Sharpton
said.
Since the shooting, Davitt, 36, has been assigned to
desk duty and has not been asked by investigators to
make a statement.
Under the police officers' contract with the city, once
investigators do ask Davitt to talk, he will have up to
48 hours to comply.
"We'll get to speak to him in time and I hope in a
timely fashion," said Patrick Clark, a spokesman for
Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes. "The
interest, of course, is to be expeditious but also to be
orderly and fair."
Davitt, responding to a report of sniper fire, chased
Whitfield into the Milky Way Grocery about 1 p.m.
on Christmas. Police have said that Davitt may have
mistaken a leather strap key chain held by Whitfield
for a gun.
Whitfield did not match the description of the rooftop
gunman, who hasn't been caught.
Original Story Date: 122997
- - -
Whistleblower Cop
By JOHN MARZULLI
Daily News Staff Writer
A city cop who acted as a confidential informant
against a sergeant is scared for his life after his
identity was revealed by prosecutors, the Daily
News has learned.
"I'm terrified," said the cop, whose name is being
withheld by The News. "I wish I had never gone to
Internal Affairs. They've ruined my life."
Red-faced officials acknowledged department
prosecutors goofed when an Internal Affairs Bureau
report naming the cop was turned over to attorneys
representing Sgt. Samuel Cosentino, who faced
charges for allegedly associating with a known
criminal.
Deputy Inspector Michael Collins, a police
spokesman, said an investigation is under way to find
out who is responsible for the gaffe, a serious breach
of NYPD policy.
The exposed cop is receiving special protection, with
uniformed patrols making regular checks at his home.
The cop went to IAB in late 1996 with information
that Cosentino was allegedly hanging out with a
felon. The cop was given an identification number as
a confidential informant and met several times with an
IAB handler.
But the cooperation ended in January 1997, when
the cop refused to wear a concealed recording
device.
Cosentino was later charged with lying to
investigators about his relationship with the ex-con
and faces dismissal from the force. His attorney
declined to comment.
The sergeant recently learned who tipped off the
IAB when the cop was identified in a police
document he obtained.
The informant's attorney, Jeffrey Goldberg, called for
an outside investigation to determine how the breach
occurred. "They put my client in extreme danger, and
I'm not getting any answers from the brass,"
Goldberg said.
Walter Mack, the former federal prosecutor who
once headed the IAB, said protecting the identity of
an informant is paramount to maintaining the safety of
tipsters as well as the integrity of the investigative
unit. "You never want to dishonor your commitment
to that human being," Mack said.
Original Story Date: 020998
- - -
Washington Heights dentist and his fiance who
claim they were victims of an Abner
Louima-like beating at the hands of 34th Precinct
cops have supplied Manhattan
prosecutors with affidavits of two
witnesses who back their account.
Yesterday, lawyers for Dr. Carlos
Acosta, 43, and Espana Aristy, 22,
released copies of the affidavits detailing what the
witnesses saw during the Nov. 30 incident that
erupted after a parking ticket dispute. But the
lawyers so far have refused to divulge the names of
the witnesses to law enforcement investigators.
"I do not want their names leaked to the police,
because I don't trust the thrust of their investigation,"
attorney Fernando Oliver said as he announced a
$150 million civil suit the couple intends to file against
the NYPD.
"Internal Affairs [Bureau] detectives are trying to
intimidate all witnesses and trying to assassinate the
character of my clients," said another attorney for the
couple, Raymond Colon.
The lawyers did make one of the witnesses available
to the Daily News on condition that his name not be
used. That witness, let's call him Lorenzo, contradicts
key aspects of the police version of what happened
after Acosta walked out of Sunday services that
evening at St. Matthew Lutheran Church on
Sherman Ave. in Inwood. Lorenzo is a retired
worker from one of Manhattan's finest restaurants.
He has never been in trouble with the law.
In their arrest complaint, Officers Joseph Holmes
and his partner, Officer Andrea Dinella, alleged
Acosta appeared "intoxicated" on cocaine, struck
Holmes and that Aristy jumped on Dinella's back
after Holmes issued her a ticket for double-parking.
Both cops suffered minor injuries.
Lorenzo said he was walking along Sherman Ave. on
the way to visit a relative that evening when he heard
a cop shout through the squad car's loudspeaker,
"Don't move the car." He noticed a man walk toward
the police car.
"I realized it was Dr. Acosta," Lorenzo said. "I know
him, because I've gone to his office for dental work a
few times. I stopped to see what what was going
on."
According to Lorenzo, two cops, a man and a
woman, got out of their cruiser.
"I couldn't hear what anyone was saying," Lorenzo
said, "but the male officer hit him [Acosta] over the
head with a radio and grabbed him by the throat.
They both fell on the floor between two parked cars,
then more police came."
"Did you see Acosta strike the male cop at any
time?" I asked Lorenzo.
"No," he said. After Acosta had been handcuffed
and placed in a police car, Lorenzo said, "they
continued to beat him inside the car."
The female cop, Lorenzo said, then grabbed the
woman with Acosta and "hit her against the car. The
female officer got in the backseat with her and
continued to beat her, and the spectators screamed
"don't hit her," Lorenzo said. There were "at least 20
people" on the street that night, he added. The
second affidavit is from a young man who said police
arrested him later that night for a suspended driver's
license. The man was in a holding cell at the precinct
when cops brought Acosta in after he had been
treated at The New York and Presbyterian Hospital.
"He had bruises close to his chest, his shirt was
unbutton [sic] and he had blood on his jacket and
blood on his head," the second affidavit said.
Aristy pleaded "five or six times" to be allowed a
phone call while cops ignored her, the affidavit
states. "She had bruises on her head and a
black-and-blue eye," and cops kept calling her "a
hooker."
Acosta alleges that once they reached the precinct,
Holmes took him handcuffed into a bathroom, ripped
his shirt, pulled down his pants and punched him
repeatedly in the groin. Aristy, a model and dance
instructor, says that Dinella likewise took her into a
bathroom and slammed her face against a wall
several times.
Police Commissioner Howard Safir, on the other
hand, has said investigators found civilian witnesses
who dispute Acosta's version. Yesterday, police said
they still discount Acosta's story about what
happened, although they have not reviewed the
affidavits. They also denied intimidating any
witnesses. The two officers, who have not returned
phone calls in the past, remain on regular duty. The
commissioner has admitted, however, that there is no
evidence Acosta was intoxicated with cocaine.
"Right now, we can't trust the police," lawyer Oliver
said. "Our witnesses and others will be presented at
trial."
Original Story Date: 021098
- - -
An off-duty cop was snared in a Brooklyn raid
last night at a bar that allegedly doubles as a
brothel, police said.
Officer James Thomas, 34, of the Manhattan North
Task Force, was charged with the felony of
promoting prostitution after he was taken into
custody at the Flamingo Lounge at 259 Kingston
Ave. in Crown Heights late Friday night.
Four other men and 21 women also were arrested.
Cops said Thomas, who joined the force in 1993,
also was an employe of the establishment.
Police said the bar included a large room in the back
that was used by prostitutes.
The women were charged with either prostitution or
promoting prostitution, cops said. The men were all
charged with promoting prostitution.
Original Story Date: 021598
=====
- - -
By MICHELE McPHEE and JOHN MARZULLI
Daily News Staff Writers
Brooklyn narcotics sergeant who was shot
yesterday during a struggle may have been
injured by his own gun or by friendly fire, authorities
said.
One apparently unarmed suspect was fatally
wounded in the wild shootout that erupted during a
buy-and-bust operation in a narrow, dimly lit hallway
of an abandoned building at 325 Franklin Ave.,
Bedford-Stuyvesant.
None of the three other suspects taken into custody
appeared to be armed. A fifth suspect was being
sought.
Sgt. Dexter Brown's bulletproof vest stopped one
round, but he was hit twice in the lower back. Brown
was listed in stable condition yesterday at Kings
County Hospital.
His gun had been fired three times. Eight more shots
were fired by two backup cops, police said.
"The circumstances of the shooting are under
investigation," said Deputy Inspector Michael
Collins, a police spokesman.
Collins said the sergeant may have been shot during
a tussle for his gun.
Brown, 35, assigned to Brooklyn North Narcotics
Unit, is the fourth narcotics cop shot in the past three
months during buy-and-bust operations. One officer
died.
All of the shot officers are minorities, which has
raised questions about whether minority officers are
being placed at greater risk in the department's
anti-drug initiatives.
Brown, a 13-year veteran, burst into the building
about 1:40 a.m. Friday after an undercover cop had
purchased $20 worth of crack there.
Brown, who was not wearing an NYPD raid jacket,
was grappling with two men, Steven Service, 20,
and the suspect who fled, when another pair of cops
rushed in, police said.
Service, the alleged crack dealer, was shot three
times in the torso, head and leg and pronounced
dead at Woodhull Hospital.
Two other men, Juan Herrera and Nathan Stowe,
21, were being questioned in connection with the
shooting. Carman Catalla, 46, was also taken into
custody on suspicion of steering customers to the
drug operation.
The wounded sergeant is married and the father of
two boys, 10 and 2. He is a former undercover cop
with more than 130 felony arrests.
Original Story Date: 022898
- - -
A city cop charged with hiring a hit man to shoot
him so he could receive disability struck a plea
deal yesterday under which he'll resign from the force
and get three years probation.
Willis Stough, 27, who had faced up to seven years
in prison, pleaded guilty to attempted tampering with
physical evidence, a misdemeanor.
Authorities said Stough — who had been on
restricted duty since 1996 and believed he was
about to be fired — hired an accomplice to shoot
him while he was off duty.
Stough was shot in the shoulder by the accomplice in
his Brooklyn apartment last September, authorities
charged.
Brooklyn prosecutors also recommended Stough
receive psychiatric treatment during his probation.
Stough will be sentenced on March 23.
His attorney, Joseph Mure, said his client thought the
plea was "most favorable to him. He avoids trial."
Original Story Date: 030398
- - -
Verdict stuns kin of man
who can never father kids
Bronx Supreme Court Justice John Moore
didn't offer much in the way of an explanation.
It took him only a couple of minutes yesterday to
announce the acquittal of Police
Officer Francisco Rodriguez, charged
with horribly maiming a teenager
during a routine traffic stop the evening
of April 21, 1993.
Though a Police Department administrative judge
had already found Rodriguez guilty, ruling that a
restaurant worker named Eddie Dominguez "lost a
testicle as a result of being kicked," Judge Moore
saw things differently.
Citing "inconsistencies in the testimony and medical
records," the one-man jury declared, "I have
reasonable doubt" and allowed Rodriguez to walk
from his courtroom a free man. The cops began
celebrating, while the Dominguez family shuffled
dejectedly into the corridors.
According to News reporter Jorge Fitz-Gibbon,
Marcellino Dominguez studied their celebration. Like
the cop, Marcellino is a Dominican immigrant. He
owns a restaurant in the Bronx. That's where his son,
Eddie, had been working the night he was hurt. In his
best gray suit, Marcellino Dominguez struggled to
keep his composure. Then, finally, he broke apart.
He clenched his fist and cried out. When his wailing
was done, the father put his head in his hands. His
daughters tried to comfort him.
"I thought in this country there was justice for
everyone," he said. "But it's only justice for some. I
ask you, what's going to be my son's reaction when
he gets this news? I don't know. How can I call my
son and give him this news?"
As it happened, Eddie Dominguez, now 22, was in
the Dominican Republic. He had a feeling something
like this would happen, and he didn't want to be
here. Five years later, doctors have told him his
chances of fathering a child are minuscule.
"If I had to sit there to hear that verdict," Eddie said,
"I would have been in an emergency room or a nut
house.
"I couldn't see that cop all happy to go home to his
wife and kids. But because of him, I can't have kids.
Because of him, my first wife left me. I can't father a
child, but he's not going to jail. Does he understand
what that means?
"They could cut me and I wouldn't bleed with the
anger I have right now. I'm worth nothing to the
justice system of New York. I'm an American. I was
born an American. I don't think I can ever go back
to New York," Eddie said.
As for the judge, he continued, "He has defrauded all
people who are in my position. If that cop did it to
me, he could do it to someone else. Why would a
judge allow this, why?"
In lieu of explanation, remember that the
reasonable-doubt standard of criminal trials is
tougher than the one the cop faced in his
administrative trial. The cop's lawyer, Arnold Kriss,
did a fine job eliciting inconsistencies in the record.
Particularly important were medical charts saying that
Dominguez was not in "acute distress" after being
admitted to the hospital.
Still, this case begs for a better explanation.
Dominguez, who has no criminal record, entered the
hospital with a ruptured testicle after an encounter
with police on the Bronx River Parkway.
He was in the passenger seat of a Chrysler Conquest
that broke down after speeding. Officer Rodriguez
kicked him in the groin after cuffing him, he testified.
The NYPD's administrative judge, who found the
cop guilty, agreed. In a detailed 48-page decision,
she wrote: "Corroborating medical evidence showed
. . . proof that Dominguez' right testicle was badly
injured. The records show that it was grossly swollen
upon an initial examination and that the entire testicle
had to be surgically amputated six weeks later."
At the same departmental trial, Rodriguez' attorney
suggested that the father was responsible for his
son's injury. "The suggestion that Marcellino
Dominguez . . . was so enraged at his son for being
run in to the stationhouse that he kicked him in the
groin was speculative and preposterous," wrote
Judge Rae Downes-Koshetz.
This time, before Judge Moore, the elder Dominguez
was depicted as a hardworking father with a
ne'er-do-well son. Now the cops suggested that
Eddie Dominguez had a pre-existing injury. They say
this was all an elaborate plot to sue the city.
It gets very complicated.
Too bad Eddie Dominguez will never be able to
explain it to his kids.
Original Story Date: 031198
- - -
A retired city cop who shot a Brooklyn man five
times during a traffic dispute was convicted of
murder yesterday.
A Manhattan jury rejected the self-defense claim of
Paul Ruine, 50, and found him guilty in the slaying of
Perry Walker Jr., 36, on Jan. 6, 1996.
Ruine, who retired in 1981 after 15 years as an
officer, faces 25 years to life in prison when he is
sentenced April 16. His lawyer, Benjamin Brafman,
said he planned to appeal.
Ruine shot Walker at Eighth Ave. and 29th St. Ruine
apparently had cut Walker off, and Walker got out
of his car and went over to yell at Ruine.
Still in his car, Ruine pulled out his licensed
.25-caliber pistol, and Walker backed off with his
hands up, said Assistant District Attorney Thomas
Schiels. Ruine fired, hitting Walker in the chest and
shoulder. Ruine then got out of the car and shot
Walker in the back three times, Schiels said.
Original Story Date: 040298
- - -
An off-duty city cop was arrested yesterday
after he allegedly sexually abused two women
at gunpoint behind a Brooklyn church.
Officer Emil Slavik, a four-year veteran assigned to
the 70th Precinct in Flatbush, accosted the two
victims, ages 22 and 25, early yesterday afternoon
on a street in Greenpoint, police said.
Brandishing a gun, Salvik, 28, forced them into an
alleyway off N. Eighth St., between Our Lady of
Mount Carmel and a group home the church runs for
mentally handicapped adults, police said.
After they were sexually abused, the victims escaped
and reported the attack to cops, who began
searching the neighborhood.
A short time later, Slavik, of Greenpoint, was
spotted just a few blocks from the church.
Officers arrested him and early last night, he was
awaiting arraignment on charges of first-degree
sexual abuse, criminal possession of a weapon and
menacing.
Slavik works at the 70th Precinct, the site of last
year's alleged sodomy torture of Haitian immigrant
Abner Louima.
Original Story Date: 042098
- - -
hacker
- - - wrote:
> Ex-Cop Guilty Of Shooting Prostitute
>
> By PETE DONOHUE
> Daily News Staff Writer
> A former cop was convicted yesterday of
> shooting and paralyzing a Queens prostitute
> who mocked him after he failed to perform sexually.
yep...sounds like him.....
hacker
- - - wrote:
yep...sounds like him.....
========= WAS CANCELLED BY =======:
Path: ...!news1.bellglobal.com!198.235.216.4.POSTED!not-for-mail
Message-ID: <wnfaovaqta.35C...@jump.net>
Supersedes: <35C2F923...@jump.net>
Subject: Sgt. Rock must live in NY!!!!
From: hacker <"(nospam)hacker"@jump.net>
Newsgroups: alt.law-enforcement
X-No-Archive: Yes
Lines: 2
Date: Sat, 01 Aug 1998 20:52:15 GMT
NNTP-Posting-Host: 202.54.100.8
NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 01 Aug 1998 16:52:15 EDT
Organization: Bell Solutions
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