Why Do you hate cops?
The Viper
I think you've drifted a little bit too far into the deep end.
There are good cops, and there are bad cops. Then again, there are mediocre
cops!
I want the good cops to be justly compensated.
I WANT the bad cops to LOSE their badges, and their pensions (If they loose
everything else too, so be it!).
- Paperboy2000 - wrote:
> Recently a convicted felon, in prison, killed a
> convicted child molester in prison because he felt
> the man deserved it. The state, to set an example,
> has sentenced him to be put to death for acting as
> jury and executioner. If it is wrong for the convict
> to kill as punishment, it should be wrong for the
> government to kill as punishment. Punishment in the
> form of murder is still murder.
Yes, killing is murder. It doesn't matter who is being killed, or why, so
long as they aren't currently killing you!
> Had the state said that murder is not justified,
> and imprisoned him for life, they would be setting
> an example. The example that they did set is that
> they believe murder to be acceptable, for the proper
> cause.
I agree with you here too.
> Now all persons with a good cause want to follow the
> government's lead and kill for the right reason.
No. I disagree totally! I haven't the slightest desire to kill anyone
unless they are trying to kill me or my friends/family!
> Defining innocent is very tricky.
An innocent person is one who is truly NOT GUILTY of the crime they stand
accused of committing, REGARDLESS of public opinion and/or a jury's
verdict!
> The OKC bombing killed many persons considered
> to be innocent.
Correction, it killed many people who WERE INNOCENT!
> Others feel that working for the
> agency that kills is justification for murder.
They ARE WRONG! They are making a case for guilt by association! THAT is a
BAD philosophy!
> Now it has become common for government
> employees to kill the innocent and go unpunished.
It isn't common at all!
> Killing a direct threat is defense.
What other name is there for it?
> Killing to protect society is premeditated murder.
I have mixed feelings about this. War is a TERRIBLE WASTE of life, and
MONEY!
> Executions are premeditated murder of a non threat.
I have no choice but to agree with you here!
> The other issue is what right do you have to tell
> anyone how, when or where to reproduce? By force.
I think I missed something here! No comment!
> Kill when it is right, not when it is legal.
It is NEVER correct to kill, unless the choice is to be killed!
> > 2) What happened to you that would cause you to hate cops?
>
> I bought a computer and woke up.
They aren't all bad! Only the minority are bad!
> > 3) What was your age when you began to hate cops?
>
> Last year, 42.
I could care less about your age!
> > 4) Can anything be done to get you to change your opinion about cops?
>
> They can act like "Peace" Officers.
If you've been wrongly prosecuted, I'm sorry for you. Been there, done
that!
Eric Lucas
things, are too stupid to know not to post binaries in non-binary newsgroups.
Fuck off, asshole. And have a nice day.
Eric Lucas
- Paperboy2000 - wrote:
> Today's "Peace" Officers.
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> [Image]
The Viper
> > unless they are trying to kill me or my friends/family!
>
You're right! I will never have a good enough cause to kill anyone unless either
my friends, family, and/or I am threatened with deadly force!
> Abortion bombings is an example of killing for a cause.
Killing is killing! Some people feel that the unborn fetus is a parasite. To a
certain extent, they're right. It would be more acceptable to me if the unborn
was carried to full term, and then put up for adoption. But a woman should have
the right to control her own body. The woman is doing just that by getting an
abortion. Guys don't have to walk around for nine months carrying their sexual
mistakes for the world to gawk at. A woman who gets an abortion does! Being
pregnant, to most guys, makes a woman seem less attractive (While she's
pregnant). And then if she keeps the child, some guys who would LOVE to be with
her if she was childless RUN for cover as soon as they find out she has a kid!
> The lives saved would justify the lives lost or destroyed.
No. Lives destroyed equals lives taken away equals people MURDERED! Murdered for
doing a somewhat societally acceptable thing. It's LEGAL!
> It also sends the intended message.
Which no one in their right mind will hear because they KNOW that the bomber(s)
are ABSOLUETLY INSANE!
> Easy to understand. Perhaps not a popular view but it has support.
I don't understand your logic at all! Not a popular view? That's putting it
mildly!
> It is not one of my issues though.
Thank GOD!
> > > Defining innocent is very tricky.
> >
> > An innocent person is one who is truly NOT GUILTY of the crime they stand
> > accused of committing, REGARDLESS of public opinion and/or a jury's
> > verdict!
> >
> > > The OKC bombing killed many persons considered
> > > to be innocent.
> >
> > Correction, it killed many people who WERE INNOCENT!
>
> I didn't know any of the victims, but weren't there any BATF
> personnel killed? The rest were acceptable casualties.
> Like when Saddam invaded Kuwait, we bombed Iraqi cities to
> punish the government.
Why would you want to kill people you don't even know?To the best of my knowledge,
I don't know any BATF people. I may. It wouldn't bother me one way or the other!
When Saddam invaded Kuwait, we bombed MILITARY targets ONLY! That was our intent!
> > > Others feel that working for the
> > > agency that kills is justification for murder.
> >
> > They ARE WRONG! They are making a case for guilt by association! THAT is a
> > BAD philosophy!
>
> Look in the mirror and think about drug users!
I'm not a drug user! If I knew drug users, I couldn't condemn them as people for
using drugs. Nor could I condemn people who hang out with them!
> You are quick to lump them into your delusions of thieving,
> robbing dopers you mentioned.
Not I!
> Ya can't have it both ways, bucko.
> I want cops to feel what it is like to be targetted for
> the actions of another.
If you target them, they'll target you! Then they'll put you in the slammer... or
into your grave! If you target them, they have no choice but to target you!
Whatever you do, don't get violent! Do yourself a favor. Sell your guns, knives,
and amunition NOW! Words are often more effective and satisfying than either
knives and/or bullets!
> Then they will know what it is like to be a black man.
Not unless they happen to be black! There Police Officers come in all racial and
ethnic varieties immaginable!
> Then they will know what it is like to be discriminated
> against for a global characteristic.
Every body faces obstacles from time to time. You are discriminating against the
police because of their job!
> > > Now it has become common for government
> > > employees to kill the innocent and go unpunished.
> >
> > It isn't common at all!
>
> Would you care to make a bet?
If it were legal I would! I'd put everything I have on the line! What would you
bet?
> > > Killing a direct threat is defense.
> >
> > What other name is there for it?
> >
> > > Killing to protect society is premeditated murder.
> >
> > I have mixed feelings about this. War is a TERRIBLE WASTE of life, and
> > MONEY!
>
> Killing to protect someone from himself is a mixed up idea, at best.
I can tell that you like making pretzels!
> > It is NEVER correct to kill, unless the choice is to be killed!
>
> That's right. Not to shoot in the back.
:~)
> > > > 2) What happened to you that would cause you to hate cops?
> > >
> > > I bought a computer and woke up.
> >
> > They aren't all bad! Only the minority are bad!
>
> I have evidence. Would you like me to present it?
Present away! I'd LOVE to see it! So would the rest of the world!
> > > > 3) What was your age when you began to hate cops?
> > >
> > > Last year, 42.
> >
> > I could care less about your age!
> >
> > > > 4) Can anything be done to get you to change your opinion about cops?
> > >
> > > They can act like "Peace" Officers.
> >
> > If you've been wrongly prosecuted, I'm sorry for you. Been there, done
> > that!
>
> I have not.
Then I'm glad for you! You have less reason to hate the police than I do, and I
DON'T hate them (I strongly dislike the bad ones though!)!
> I live on the front lines of the war.
Fine! We all have our little wars! People have been making up stories (BAD,
hateful stories that insult both my intelligence and my integrity!) since I was
about 9 years old! It's been a LONG time since I've been 9 years old! People are
still talking, and I'm STILL doing FINE! I just got published a few months ago
for the first time under my own name! That's an honor most of them will never
achieve (And maybe, just maybe, I have their mistreatment of me to thank for it!)
Live long, and prosper. Pick a fight you can win. The world is changing slowly.
Give it time. Everything will work out for the best in the end!
- Paperboy2000 -
>
> Um, acceptable casualties? What if you were one of them? Would you
> feel you deserved to die because of their 'cause'?
>
> On Mon, 17 Aug 1998 20:34:37 -0400, - Paperboy2000 - <p2...@aol.com>
> wrote:
>
> >I didn't know any of the victims, but weren't there any BATF
> >personnel killed? The rest were acceptable casualties.
> >Like when Saddam invaded Kuwait, we bombed Iraqi cities to
> >punish the government.
Not acceptable to me. To McViegh.
- Paperboy2000 -
>
> > > An innocent person is one who is truly NOT GUILTY of the crime they stand
> > > accused of committing, REGARDLESS of public opinion and/or a jury's
> > > verdict!
> > >
> > > > The OKC bombing killed many persons considered
> > > > to be innocent.
> > >
> > > Correction, it killed many people who WERE INNOCENT!
> >
> > I didn't know any of the victims, but weren't there any BATF
> > personnel killed? The rest were acceptable casualties.
> > Like when Saddam invaded Kuwait, we bombed Iraqi cities to
> > punish the government.
>
> Why would you want to kill people you don't even know?To the best of my knowledge,
> I don't know any BATF people. I may. It wouldn't bother me one way or the other!
> When Saddam invaded Kuwait, we bombed MILITARY targets ONLY! That was our intent!
The Iraqi army was in Kuwait. We bombed Iraq.
> > > > Others feel that working for the
> > > > agency that kills is justification for murder.
> > >
> > > They ARE WRONG! They are making a case for guilt by association! THAT is a
> > > BAD philosophy!
> >
> > Look in the mirror and think about drug users!
>
> I'm not a drug user! If I knew drug users, I couldn't condemn them as people for
> using drugs. Nor could I condemn people who hang out with them!
>
> > You are quick to lump them into your delusions of thieving,
> > robbing dopers you mentioned.
>
> Not I!
>
> > Ya can't have it both ways, bucko.
> > I want cops to feel what it is like to be targetted for
> > the actions of another.
>
> If you target them, they'll target you! Then they'll put you in the slammer... or
> into your grave! If you target them, they have no choice but to target you!
> Whatever you do, don't get violent! Do yourself a favor. Sell your guns, knives,
> and amunition NOW! Words are often more effective and satisfying than either
> knives and/or bullets!
>
> > Then they will know what it is like to be a black man.
>
> Not unless they happen to be black! There Police Officers come in all racial and
> ethnic varieties immaginable!
They must learn how it feels to be forced to pay for
the actions of some. Just as the law does to dopers.
> > Then they will know what it is like to be discriminated
> > against for a global characteristic.
>
> Every body faces obstacles from time to time. You are discriminating against the
> police because of their job!
Just as they do when profiling.
> > > > Now it has become common for government
> > > > employees to kill the innocent and go unpunished.
> > >
> > > It isn't common at all!
> >
> > Would you care to make a bet?
>
> If it were legal I would! I'd put everything I have on the line! What would you
> bet?
You believe that corruption is an anomoly?
> > > > Killing a direct threat is defense.
> > >
> > > What other name is there for it?
> > >
> > > > Killing to protect society is premeditated murder.
> > >
> > > I have mixed feelings about this. War is a TERRIBLE WASTE of life, and
> > > MONEY!
> >
> > Killing to protect someone from himself is a mixed up idea, at best.
>
> I can tell that you like making pretzels!
You can't see that caging or killing dopers to
protect them from self abuse is wrong?
> > > It is NEVER correct to kill, unless the choice is to be killed!
> >
> > That's right. Not to shoot in the back.
>
> :~)
>
> > > > > 2) What happened to you that would cause you to hate cops?
> > > >
> > > > I bought a computer and woke up.
> > >
> > > They aren't all bad! Only the minority are bad!
> >
> > I have evidence. Would you like me to present it?
>
> Present away! I'd LOVE to see it! So would the rest of the world!
You won't like what I show you, but I will start today.
You will be surprised at the numbers of cops arrested and
unpunished or given suspension. Even for killing.
> > >
> > > > > 4) Can anything be done to get you to change your opinion about cops?
> > > >
> > > > They can act like "Peace" Officers.
> > >
> > > If you've been wrongly prosecuted, I'm sorry for you. Been there, done
> > > that!
> >
> > I have not.
>
> Then I'm glad for you! You have less reason to hate the police than I do, and I
> DON'T hate them (I strongly dislike the bad ones though!)!
No, I have plenty of reasons.
> > I live on the front lines of the war.
>
> Fine! We all have our little wars! People have been making up stories (BAD,
> hateful stories that insult both my intelligence and my integrity!) since I was
> about 9 years old! It's been a LONG time since I've been 9 years old! People are
> still talking, and I'm STILL doing FINE! I just got published a few months ago
> for the first time under my own name! That's an honor most of them will never
> achieve (And maybe, just maybe, I have their mistreatment of me to thank for it!)
Congratulations.
> Live long, and prosper. Pick a fight you can win. The world is changing slowly.
> Give it time. Everything will work out for the best in the end!
I will win.
.
Bryan
> committed a crime has become acceptable. Innocent
> are killed as a result. Policies are not charged
> and it happens again.
If you don't want to get shot, DON'T DO CRIME! What would you do if
some fool broke into your house and raped your wife and robbed you then
started running away? You'd blast him! Because you know he'd just get
off with a slap on the wrist later.
> Recently a convicted felon, in prison, killed a
> convicted child molester in prison because he felt
> the man deserved it. The state, to set an example,
> has sentenced him to be put to death for acting as
> jury and executioner. If it is wrong for the convict
> to kill as punishment, it should be wrong for the
> government to kill as punishment. Punishment in the
> form of murder is still murder.
Let the prisoners kill eachother, keeps them out of the streets!
> Now all persons with a good cause want to follow the
> government's lead and kill for the right reason.
This country is overpopulated with losers anyway, need to clean them
out! Thats why these arguments are going on in the first place.
> Killing someone to protect no one directly is murder.
Yeah but it gets rid of the scumbag. The punishment for all crime
should be death! Although I can see a small child stealing some food
for survival...grey area there I guess...
> Killing the innocent is murder.
You commit a crime and you are no longer "innocent"
> Well the lesson has been taught by the government.
> The government truly believes in premeditated murder
> to teach a lesson. This is where the citizens get
> the idea from. Don't citizens have equal rights
> with the government? No, they don't.
I agree with you here...but I don't lump the police in with the
government...most that I know just want to help...
> Why? Because the government says so through
> legislation.
>
> Now it has become common for government
> employees to kill the innocent and go unpunished.
> Unpunished because the "intent" was a good cause.
> Killing a direct threat is defense.
> Killing to protect society is premeditated murder.
> Executions are premeditated murder of a non threat.
So you want I society with thieves, gangsters, and druggies running
around?
> The other issue is what right do you have to tell
> anyone how, when or where to reproduce? By force.
> Especially deadly force. What right does the
> government have telling people how to reproduce
> or plan families? By force. Force of law.
> Deadly force. Jailing persons that can't support
> their kids. That is forcing reproduction limits
> based on income.
>
> Jailing and killing over ideas.
>
> No threat. The threat is that you never know when
> the government will decide to kill or execute you for
> things that should have nothing to do with government.
>
> The government has decided what is right for all and
> has enacted laws to enforce their version of right
> on those not interested in living that way.
>
> Forced protection from the government is not right,
> only legal. Killing by the government is not right,
> only legal.
>
> Defending yourself from government attack is right,
> also illegal. Resisting when innocent is right,
> also illegal. Defending yourself from attack by
> cops acting outside the Constitution is right,
> also illegal.
>
> Resisting arrest when innocent is illegal.
> It is the right thing to do though.
>
> The system will not treat you fairly.
You watch too much X-Files...
> They will punish you because you deserve it.
Why else would they punish you?!
> People need to stand up against force used
> on the innocent.
What makes criminals innocent?
> Kill for direct defense of a person.
>
> Kill when it is right, not when it is legal.
This is true..
> > 2) What happened to you that would cause you to hate cops?
>
> I bought a computer and woke up.
>
> > 3) What was your age when you began to hate cops?
>
> Last year, 42.
>
> > 4) Can anything be done to get you to change your opinion about cops?
>
> They can act like "Peace" Officers.
What then should the police do, in your opinion, to act like "peace
officers?"
-b
Dittohead
<vvi...@pacbell.net> bravely stuck his foot in his mouth and muttered:
>> The lives saved would justify the lives lost or destroyed.
>
>No. Lives destroyed equals lives taken away equals people MURDERED! Murdered for
>doing a somewhat societally acceptable thing. It's LEGAL!
<snip>
>> > An innocent person is one who is truly NOT GUILTY of the crime they stand
>> > accused of committing, REGARDLESS of public opinion and/or a jury's
>> > verdict!
<snip>
>> > They ARE WRONG! They are making a case for guilt by association! THAT is a
>> > BAD philosophy!
<snip>
>Whatever you do, don't get violent! Do yourself a favor. Sell your guns, knives,
>and amunition NOW! Words are often more effective and satisfying than either
>knives and/or bullets!
My Fellow PATRIOTS;
I have been advised that there has been a Call to Arms sent out by
Linda Thompson, of
Indianapolis, Indiana, calling for Patriots to come to Waco, Texas, on
April 3, to form an
armed militia. These past few weeks have been very fruitful for the
Patriot Community.
The efforts of hundreds of Patriots have resulted in effective
compromises on the part of
BATF and FBI. The solution being worked toward is of a positive
nature, and is a good
solution to the problem at hand, as well as the attitude of the
American public. The lives
of those in the Branch Davidian Church Complex are safer now than at
any time since
February 28. A PEACEFUL REVOLUTION IS IN PROGRESS!
Myself and many others who have worked for a peaceful solution beseech
you not to
follow the request for a call to arms.
Those of us working for a peaceful solution have had many setbacks,
but we have also
had many successes. Linda Thompson, being a BAR attorney, has had one
setback
and now feels a need to resort to violence. Let's use some good old
Common Sense
and not undermine what is being successful. This call to arms would,
most likely, put the
Patriot Movement back many years, or worse, beginning an armed
insurrection. This
would have a negative affect on every family in America.
If the time comes for such a call, there are many who have worked long
and hard for the
movement. Rely on those who have put more than just a few months into
the movement
to judge the severity, or the success, of the efforts to date.
If you come to Waco, come unarmed. If you come armed, turn your
weapons in to the
Sheriff for safe keeping until you are ready to leave. Peaceful
efforts are in order, and
their success is becoming apparent. GOD IS ON OUR SIDE!
Gary Hunt
Outpost of Freedom
(817) 662-2442, ext 223
Waco, Texas
Terry Moore
says...
>What then should the police do, in your opinion, to act like "peace
>officers?"
>
>-b
--
*****************
In recent weeks, six Houston cops broke down the door of an
apartment and fired more than thirty shots. 12 of the bullets
hit the man in the BACK. The cops had no search warrant and no
arrest warrant. The dead man had no drugs nor no police record.
He DID have an unfired gun in his hand.
See the archives in
for the rest of the details.
Is this your idea of 'peace officer' keeping the peace?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Terry at Lake Bastrop
*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--
:-:Cops have a better chance of winning the
:-:Texas Lottery Jackpot than they do of being
:-:shot/stabbed/clubbed to death by a bad-guy/bad-gal
*--*--*--*--*--*-|-*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*-|-*--*--*--
:-: Visit Terry's web page at:
:-:http://www.io.com/~jvaughn/tmoore1.htm
*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--
Copyright (c) 1998 by Terry Moore
Steve Furbish
>
> Brad Young wrote:
>
>
> > 1) Why Do you hate cops?
>
> The view of the current U.S. government, law
> enforcement and the military are based on the idea that
> killing is proper, if justified by a good cause.
That's just your slant on the way things are.
> Shooting fleeing persons in the back that may have
> committed a crime has become acceptable. Innocent
> are killed as a result. Policies are not charged
> and it happens again.
You are very misguided if you honestly believe that
statement to be true.
> Recently a convicted felon, in prison, killed a
> convicted child molester in prison because he felt
> the man deserved it. The state, to set an example,
> has sentenced him to be put to death for acting as
> jury and executioner. If it is wrong for the convict
> to kill as punishment, it should be wrong for the
> government to kill as punishment. Punishment in the
> form of murder is still murder.
The Constitution guarantees you "due process" in the form of
a fair trial and protection from cruel and unusual
punishment. It does not provide for your accuser to act as
sole judge, jury and executioner and it does not prohibit
the government from establishing and employing punishments
that you personally have a distaste for...
> Had the state said that murder is not justified,
> and imprisoned him for life, they would be setting
> an example. The example that they did set is that
> they believe murder to be acceptable, for the proper
> cause.
Your continued use of the word murder, as opposed to
killing, suggests that you are either unwilling or unable to
differentiate between the justifiable killing of another
human and legally defined murder?
> Killing someone to protect no one directly is murder.
>
> Killing to defend one's self or a "direct" threat to
> another is properly called defense.
>
> Killing the innocent is murder.
>
> Defining innocent is very tricky.
...and ALL of this has very little, if anything, to do with
hating police. Under most circumstances we do not impose or
carry out death sentences. At best, your hatred is
misdirected.
> Now it has become common for government
> employees to kill the innocent and go unpunished.
> Unpunished because the "intent" was a good cause.
> Killing a direct threat is defense.
> Killing to protect society is premeditated murder.
> Executions are premeditated murder of a non threat.
Again, not exactly responsive to the question that you're
purporting to answer...
> No threat. The threat is that you never know when
> the government will decide to kill or execute you for
> things that should have nothing to do with government.
Your perceived status as a bona fide nut case rivaling Tom
Alciere is nearly established!
> The government has decided what is right for all and
> has enacted laws to enforce their version of right
> on those not interested in living that way.
In other words, you hate the concept of majority rule?
> Defending yourself from government attack is right,
> also illegal. Resisting when innocent is right,
> also illegal. Defending yourself from attack by
> cops acting outside the Constitution is right,
> also illegal.
I have a feeling that you'd like to totally ignore a few
parts of the Constitution yourself? Your words games are not
that impressive. Remember, you yourself said "Defining
innocent is very tricky."
> Resisting arrest when innocent is illegal.
> It is the right thing to do though.
Are we then to let each and every criminal suspect decide
their own guilt or innocence? What a ridiculous proposition!
> > 2) What happened to you that would cause you to hate cops?
>
> I bought a computer and woke up.
Your first assertion is conceded, your second is subject to
serious debate.
> > 3) What was your age when you began to hate cops?
>
> Last year, 42.
You avoided the questions posed by the original poster (Mr.
Young) quite nicely. At best you presented your reasons for
hating government in general, but I think you failed even in
that respect. You're either inadvertently leaving some
important issues out or your avoiding them purposely?
> > 4) Can anything be done to get you to change your opinion about cops?
>
> They can act like "Peace" Officers.
The majority do.
Steve
Terry Moore
terry...@xmail.utexas.net, Terry Moore says...
>
>In article <35D997...@spamthis.commie>, br...@spamthis.commie, Bryan
>says...
>
>>What then should the police do, in your opinion, to act like "peace
>>officers?"
>>
>>-b
>
>--
*****************
I gave the wrong URL in my previous post. It should have
read like this:
In recent weeks, six Houston cops broke down the door of an
apartment and fired more than thirty shots. 12 of the bullets
hit the man in the BACK. The cops had no search warrant and no
arrest warrant. The dead man had no drugs nor no police record.
He DID have an unfired gun in his hand.
See the archives in
http://www.chron.com/content/archive/index.html
Steve Furbish
>
> Today's "Peace" Officers.
The days of Andy Griffith and Barney Fife are over. Cops, as
a rule, go to work with the intentions of returning home at
the end of their shifts. If your little binary is suppose to
shock the senses it might help to caption it more
appropriately and perhaps post the circumstances surrounding
the photo....
Steve
Steve Furbish
>
> The Viper wrote:
> > > The OKC bombing killed many persons considered
> > > to be innocent.
> >
> > Correction, it killed many people who WERE INNOCENT!
>
> I didn't know any of the victims, but weren't there any BATF
> personnel killed? The rest were acceptable casualties.
> Like when Saddam invaded Kuwait, we bombed Iraqi cities to
> punish the government.
This is an asinine comparison IMO. The government does have
certain duties and responsibilities above and beyond those
held by the general public. What you suggest is called
vigilantism and is a subset form of anarchy. It matters NOT
if there were ATF agents hurt or killed in Oklahoma City.
Viper was certainly right about guilt by association being
bad philosophy.
> > They ARE WRONG! They are making a case for guilt by association! THAT is a
> > BAD philosophy!
>
> Look in the mirror and think about drug users!
Didn't momma ever teach you that two wrongs don't make
things right?
> Ya can't have it both ways, bucko.
> I want cops to feel what it is like to be targetted for
> the actions of another.
Happens all the time, bucko. You seem little more than a
hate monger yourself?
> > > Now it has become common for government
> > > employees to kill the innocent and go unpunished.
> >
> > It isn't common at all!
>
> Would you care to make a bet?
A bet neither side could prove to the satisfaction of the
other. You'd have to agree on a definition of "common" and I
don't see that as likely considering the paperboys biases...
> > It is NEVER correct to kill, unless the choice is to be killed!
>
> That's right. Not to shoot in the back.
Does this allegory serve a purpose?
> > > > 2) What happened to you that would cause you to hate cops?
> > >
> > > I bought a computer and woke up.
> >
> > They aren't all bad! Only the minority are bad!
>
> I have evidence. Would you like me to present it?
That was the whole idea.... , but I suspect you just found a
new soapbox and wanted to try your luck at ranting and
raving to an audience you don't have to sit face to face
with...
> > > > 4) Can anything be done to get you to change your opinion about cops?
> > >
> > > They can act like "Peace" Officers.
> >
> > If you've been wrongly prosecuted, I'm sorry for you. Been there, done
> > that!
>
> I have not. I live on the front lines of the war.
>
> I hear it every night.
> Another gunfight.
> The tension mounts, on with the body count.
You're an idiot.
Steve
>
> .
Steve Furbish
> I don't understand your logic at all! Not a popular view? That's putting it
> mildly!
Viper,
In the off chance that you haven't figured out yet that
you're conversing with Paul Garrow, alias Outlaw Frog-Raper,
alias paperboy2000, (and a collection of other stupid names
designed only to defeat killfiles) you might want to
consider that when referring to what he possesses as
"logic". If you're not familiar with him check out DejaNews
and you'll see what I mean ;-)
Steve
The Viper
> The Viper wrote:
> > When Saddam invaded Kuwait, we bombed MILITARY targets ONLY! That was our intent!
>
> The Iraqi army was in Kuwait. We bombed Iraq.
Not all of it! The most important people in the Iraqui military were in Baghdad!
Saddam was in Iraq also!We went after military targets! Saddam put innocent civilians
in the way, ON PURPOSE! Blame Saddam for the deaths of his country's innocent
civilians!
> > > Then they will know what it is like to be a black man.
> >
> > Not unless they happen to be black! Police Officers come in all racial and
> > ethnic varieties immaginable!
>
> They must learn how it feels to be forced to pay for
> the actions of some. Just as the law does to dopers.
The whole world pays for the actions of some! Have you ever travel by air? Every time
you go to a commercial airport, or into a government building, you have to pass through
a Metal Detector because there are SOME people out there who want to blow up airplanes
filled with innocent men, women, and children!Doing drugs damages the brain! When you
do drugs, you hurt yourself!
> > > Then they will know what it is like to be discriminated
> > > against for a global characteristic.
> > Every body faces obstacles from time to time. You are discriminating against the
> > police because of their job!
>
> Just as they do when profiling.
Whether you know it or not, you do your own "profiling" every day of your life! Look at
the people you choose to be your friends. Then take a CAREFUL look at the people you
choose not to be friends with. Why do you reject some people, and not others?
> > > > > Now it has become common for government
> > > > > employees to kill the innocent and go unpunished.
> > > > It isn't common at all!
> > > Would you care to make a bet?
> > If it were legal I would! I'd put everything I have on the line! What would you
> > bet?
> You believe that corruption is an anomoly?
You didn't answer the question! Put up, or shut up!
> > > Killing to protect someone from himself is a mixed up idea, at best.
> > I can tell that you like making pretzels!
> You can't see that caging or killing dopers to
> protect them from self abuse is wrong?
I knew someone (When I was a kid) that took his first hit of pot when he was 8. He
LOVED it! NOBODY awnted to give it to him, but he blackmailed them into it. I was just
as powerless as everyone else to stop him. Six years later, when he was 14, he was a
WASTE CASE! He was still the same guy, I still liked him, but he wasn't functioning
properly. I wouldn't want to see him in jail, but if I thought that that was what was
needed to save his life, then that's where I'd want him to go. Some people may need to
be jailed to save them from themselves. God help him if he ever wound up in jail, he
was a cute kid. (And NO, I haven't ever been in jail. And I DON'T do drugs!)
> > > I have evidence. Would you like me to present it?
> > Present away! I'd LOVE to see it! So would the rest of the world!
>
> You won't like what I show you, but I will start today.
>
> You will be surprised at the numbers of cops arrested and
> unpunished or given suspension. Even for killing.
Show us what evidence you have! We WANT to see it! PLEASE!
> > > > If you've been wrongly prosecuted, I'm sorry for you. Been there, done
> > > > that!
> > > I have not.
> > Then I'm glad for you! You have less reason to hate the police than I do, and I
> > DON'T hate them (I strongly dislike the bad ones though!)!
>
> No, I have plenty of reasons.
Please enumerate them!
> > > I live on the front lines of the war.
> >
> > Fine! We all have our little wars! People have been making up stories (BAD,
> > hateful stories that insult both my intelligence and my integrity!) since I was
> > about 9 years old! It's been a LONG time since I've been 9 years old! People are
> > still talking, and I'm STILL doing FINE! I just got published a few months ago
> > for the first time under my own name! That's an honor most of them will never
> > achieve (And maybe, just maybe, I have their mistreatment of me to thank for it!)
>
> Congratulations.
Thank you!
> > Live long, and prosper. Pick a fight you can win. The world is changing slowly.
> > Give it time. Everything will work out for the best in the end!
>
> I will win.
Only if you choose battles you can win!
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teenaged girl is appealing his dismissal from the force. Officer John
Angotti was arrested July 8th, after a 15-year old girl accused him of
fondling her during a strip search. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
reports that Angotti will appeal his case to arbitration within 10 days.
Despite the outcome, he still faces criminal charges.
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By CHIP CHANDLER
Globe-News Staff Writer
WHEELER,TX - A Wheeler County grand jury on Monday indicted a Texas
Department of Public
Safety trooper on charges of aggravated perjury.
Trooper Chad S. Estes was indicted in connection with his testimony in
the March trial of Robert
Curtis Tillman in Wheeler.
District Attorney John Mann said the grand jury believed Estes lied in
his trial testimony when he
said he found marijuana in a fanny pack on Tillman.
Tillman was arrested by Estes on Interstate 40 after a large amount of
marijuana was found in
Tillman's van, Mann said.
Tillman's attorney asked Estes whether he was sure Tillman knew the
marijuana was in the back of
his van, Mann said.
The trooper testified that Tillman knew about the marijuana because some
was found in Tillman's
fanny pack, Mann said. The trooper then said he did not log the drug as
evidence and gave it to
Trooper John Holland to use in training a drug dog, the DA said.
"He was trying to establish an affirmative link between the driver and
the marijuana in the van. . . .
He made it up in an effort to strengthen the case," Mann said.
Holland told Mann that he was given no marijuana, Mann said. The DA also
said that any drugs
used in training are checked out through DPS's Austin office.
Estes, who now lives in Temple, could not be reached for comment Monday.
Tillman was convicted, though the conviction was later thrown out
because of Estes' testimony,
Mann said. A new trial date has not been set, he said.
Amarillo DPS spokesman L.B. Snider said he was unaware of the indictment
and that the Amarillo
office had not investigated the alleged incident to his knowledge. He
said he anticipated an
investigation.
State DPS spokesman Mike Cox said that an indicted trooper would be
placed on suspension with
pay until the matter is adjudicated.
"If somebody gets convicted, that would be grounds for suspension
without pay, which means being
fired," Cox said.
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Mexican
national killed during a raid by Houston police was shot 12 times,
including nine times in the back.
The report also says nine of the shots had a downward
trajectory,
indicating they may have been fired from a position above the victim,
Pedro Oregon.
Six police officers have been suspended pending the outcome of
an
internal investigation of the July 12 shooting in southwest Houston.
Houston police spokesman Robert Hurst says the department has
received a copy of the autopsy by the Harris County medical examiner and
it is ``cooperating fully'' with an investigation by the district
attorney.
Oregon was shot to death after members of a gang task force
raided
his apartment, reportedly acting on information received from an
informant. They were looking for drugs, but none were found.
The officers say they fired on Oregon after he pointed a pistol
at
them.
Family members say the officers continued shooting Oregon after
he
had fallen to the floor. Bullet holes were found in the floor where he
fell.
Paul Nugent, an attorney for the family, said, ``All the wounds
are
disturbing.'' He met Monday night the medical examiner.
One officer, 30-year-old Lamont E. Tillery, was shot in the
shoulder
in the raid but saved by his bulletproof vest. Ballistics tests indicate
that Tillery was shot by a fellow officer.
Erasmus Martinez, a Mexican government representative, was in
Houston
on Monday to meet with Oregon's family and officials. He said he has
confidence in the investigation being conducted by police and the
district attorney, but he may ask the Justice Department to investigate.
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A Cook County Circuit judge convicted a Chicago
police officer Thursday of fondling women while
conducting routine traffic stops in the Chicago Lawn District.
After a one-day bench trial before Judge Thomas
R. Sumner, Samuel Turks, 49, was convicted of five counts
of official misconduct,
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An ambitious young politician in DuPage County
and a veteran employee of the Illinois secretary of
state's office are partners in an investigations firm headed by an
Addison police officer charged with selling confidential
law enforcement information.
The police officer, Michael R. Williams, 38, was
indicted on charges of bribery, official misconduct and
possession of marijuana after an investigation by state police
and the DuPage's state's attorney's office.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York City
police officer pleaded not guilty Tuesday to
charges of attempting to murder a homeless man who
had tried to wash his car windshield.
Michael Meyer is accused of shooting
``squeegee man'' Antoine Reid once in the chest at close
range June 14 during an argument on a Bronx
expressway. Meyer, who was off duty at the time and
heading home from a Yankees baseball game, was apparently
angered by Reid soaping his car window.
Reid has filed a $100 million lawsuit
against the city and the police department over the
shooting, which renewed concern about relations between city
residents and a police force under orders to stamp out
even the most minor infractions.
Squeegee men, who splash soap onto the
windshields of cars stopped at traffic lights, then
wash them for a dollar or two, were targeted by Mayor Rudolph
Giuliani as part of his ``quality of life''
campaign when he was first elected in 1993. Giuliani said their
actions intimidated other city residents.
Meyer, 28, was indicted Tuesday on
charges of attempted murder, assault and reckless
endangerment. He faces a maximum sentence of up to 25
years imprisonment.
``The New York State statute is very
clear on the circumstances under which deadly
physical force may be used,'' Bronx District Attorney
Robert Johnson said in a statement.
``We are alleging that there is no
reasonable or legal justification for the shooting of
Antoine Reid.''
More than 100 police officers and
friends of Meyer attended the State Supreme Court
hearing in the Bronx.
Meyer, who was released on $100,000
bail, says he fired once in self-defense after being
attacked by Reid.He has been suspended without pay since
the shooting. Meyer has had many brutality complaints
filed against him and Reid has a long criminal
record, according to city officials.
Reid is recovering from his injuries
after being released from the hospital at the end of June.
Five officers were indicted earlier
this year on federal and state charges after Haitian
immigrant Abner Louima said he was beaten and sexually
tortured last summer at a Brooklyn police station.
In response to charges that police
brutality rose as the crime rate fell, Giuliani created a
commission to review police behavior, but he has dismissed
most of its findings.
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Operation
By PAM BELLUCK
CLEVELAND -- In what may be the largest and widest
ranging police corruption investigation in the country in recent
years, 44 officers from five law-enforcement agencies were charged
Wednesday with taking money to protect cocaine trafficking operations in
Cleveland and northern Ohio, federal authorities said.
The arrests were the result of a two-and-a-half-year federal
sting operation, which started out as an inquiry into organized
crime in Cleveland, officials said. Along the way, investigators
discovered a large ring of police officers and sheriff's department
corrections
officers who readily hired themselves out to be escorts and security
guards
for people they believed to be cocaine traffickers, but who were really
undercover federal agents.
"It's the largest I'm aware of," said Tron Brekke, deputy
assistant director of the FBI's office of public and congressional
affairs in Washington, who until recently supervised the bureau's
police
corruption investigations. "There are other cases that may have dragged
on for a while and may have had as many officers involved. For a single
day arrest, I don't recall anything even close."
Brekke said he believed there had never been a police
corruption case involving officers from so many different agencies.
The Cleveland case is the latest in a series of police
corruption investigations that have struck cities across the country in
recent years. From 1994 to 1997, 508 officers in 47 cities have been
convicted in Federal corruption cases, FBI figures show.
In many cases, not only has the police department involved
been forced to overhaul its operations, but arrests made by the corrupt
officers have been tainted and criminal convictions they helped secure
have
been overturned.
"What we're seeing is this pattern of greed and corrupt
conduct, and it's happening all over the country, from the Southwest
border, to
New England to California," Brekke said.
The corruption cases are unsettling at a time when police
departments should be experiencing a heroic heyday, as crime in cities
across the country is going down and many cities, including Cleveland,
are experiencing a renaissance as people feel it is safer to spend
time there.
But in a different way, the corruption that has emerged in
recent years is also a sign of the times, experts say, driven by the
emergence
of the drug trade and the vast sums of money it generates.
"There is a new form of corruption," said William Bratton, the
former New York City police chief. "It used to be cops took payoffs
to look the other way, for what was usually a more a more benign
activity
like gambling, prostitution. What we're seeing now is the insidious
aspect caused by the drug problem. There is more and more crossing
the line to get involved in that business. Either they provide
protection
or, as in New York, they would literally steal the drugs and then sell
them
themselves. Also what we're seeing is cops as criminals engaging in very
significant violence to support their criminal goals."
Many experts said this new kind of corruption is almost never
strewn throughout an entire police department in the kind of systemic
fashion that characterized corruption 20 years ago.
Instead, Joseph Armao, who was chief counsel of the Mollen
Commission, which investigated police misdeeds from 1992 to
1994, said, "What we found was organized bands of cops, ranging from
just two partners in a patrol car to an entire shift of officers,
who go out and make their scores like individual entrepreneurs."
In New Orleans, 10 officers were convicted for their role in
protecting a cocaine supply warehouse containing 286 pounds of cocaine
in
1994. In Philadelphia, six officers pleaded guilty to corruption
charges including planting drug evidence, conducting illegal searches
and lying
under oath, and 160 wrongfully convicted prisoners were released. In
Chicago, in two unrelated cases in the last year, 10 officers in two
police districts were charged with robbing and extorting money and
narcotics
from drug dealers.
In Washington, after the resignation of the police chief as
his close friend and roommate was charged with extortion, city officials
are
looking into possible corruption in the department. And in
Indianapolis,
the FBI is investigating the police department after one officer was
charged with the
death of a suspected drug dealer he was trying to rob.
The Cleveland police corruption investigation was a "spin-off
of the original undercover operation that targeted organized crime"
said Van A. Harp, the special agent in charge of the FBI in Cleveland.
Indeed, Harp also announced the arrest Wednesday of seven of what he
called
the "original targets," suspected organized crime figures whose
charges concerning money laundering, drugs, gambling and firearms
violations were not related to the allegations against the officers.
In the process of the investigation, federal agents got wind
of a corrections officer for the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's
Department, Michael W. Joye, who sold drugs to an undercover agent and
indicated he would provide security, first for the smuggling of illegal
gambling machines and then for drug deals, according to a 99-page
affidavit. Joye, the affidavit said, recruited 24 other officers and a
deputy
from the sheriff's department, and 18 from four regional police
departments -- seven from Cleveland, three from Cleveland Heights, six
from
East Cleveland and two from Brooklyn, N.Y. -- to help out in the
deals. All in all, undercover agents videotaped or audio-taped 16
drug deals from November 1996 until six days ago in which at least some
of the officers participated, involving up to 50 kilograms of what
they believed to be cocaine, Harp said. The officers were paid $750 to
$3,700 for each transaction, federal officials said. Also arrested
Wednesday were eight other people seven of whom pretended to be law
enforcement officers to take part in the drug-security operation.
The statements of Joye in the affidavit paint a picture of
cocky, brazen officers who were willing to do almost anything for
money.
At one point, for example, Joye, "a.k.a. Guido," is
accompanying an undercover agent to a storage facility where he and
other
officers help move smuggled gambling machines and provide security for
the
illegal operation.
Joye, who was dismissed, was asked by the undercover agent if
the other officers involved were trustworthy.
"I trust my guys real good," Joye replied. "We're a family,
and not one of us wants to get busted. Nobody wants to get caught.
These guys
I have working for me, we're like a specialty, like a goon squad."
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District
Police Department is accused of shaking down an individual while on the
force in 1995. Michael Broome is charged with attempted extortion and
illegeal use of a firearm. Acting U-S Attorney for the Northern District
Gary Shapiro said Broome threatened to use force to obtain money from an
individual.
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July 15, 1997
BY JIM CASEY AND BRYAN SMITH STAFF REPORTERS
Police Sgt. Kathleen M. Witczak, who had steadily risen through the
ranks in her 10 years on the
force, died Monday after she crashed her squad car while drunk on duty,
sources said.
Witczak, 32, assigned to the Calumet Police District, died at Christ
Hospital in Oak Lawn from
injuries suffered Saturday night when her police car jumped a curb and
sheared off a utility pole,
police said.
Investigators said Witczak went to an out-of-the-way bar at Skipper's
Marina, 13421 S. Vernon,
at 5 p.m., about an hour after beginning her 4 p.m. to midnight shift.
Witczak, who was in uniform,
parked her squad car outside.
Inside the bar, Witczak met Jesus Martinez, 27, of the 8900 block of
South Houston, and his
girlfriend, police said. The three drank shooters--a mixture of tequila
and 7-Up. Witczak and
Martinez then borrowed a boat from another Skipper's patron and
continued drinking, visiting at
least one other bar on the river, according to police. They returned to
Skipper's before leaving
together at 11:05 p.m.
Witczak was driving Martinez home at about 11:16 p.m., still officially
on duty, when she hit a curb
in the 1500 block of East 113th Street, police said. The squad car flew
160 feet, hit the utility pole
6 feet above its base and came to rest after traveling another 100 feet.
Witczak, who had to be cut from the car by a Fire Department rescue
team, tested legally drunk at
the hospital with a blood-alcohol level of 0.234--nearly three times the
legal limit, sources said.
Martinez, a security guard for a south suburban company, was not
seriously injured.
Police were at a loss to explain the conduct of Witczak, a 10-year
veteran who was just promoted
to sergeant on March 1.
A fellow officer at Area 2 called Witczak a ``good worker'' and ``very
conscientous and polite.''
It was the same in Witczak's neighborhood, a quiet, tree-lined enclave
of small brick houses.
``She was very friendly, very easygoing,'' said next-door neighbor, Ted
Wychocki. ``All I can say is
good things about her.'' Wychocki could remember only one party at her
snug brick house on the
13000 block of South Avenue L in Hegewisch--a Fourth of July celebration
with her family.
He knew of no drinking problem. ``I kind of doubt it. My wife once said
she saw her with a can of
beer, but I've never seen her with anything.''
At Skipper's lounge, owner Paul ``Skip'' Strombeck said as far as he
knew Witczak and Martinez
drank only a ``couple of Cokes,'' then left. Strombeck said he came to
the bar much later in the
evening, well after the pair had left.
``What I can tell you,'' Strombeck said, ``is our bartender was not
getting these people drunk in our
bar.''
The tavern, a low shack that sits at the end of a winding, bumpy gravel
road, was not a police
hangout, Strombeck said, and he had not seen Witczak there before.
He said his bartender told him Witczak, Martinez and two other police
officers arrived at the bar
about 5:30 p.m. Saturday. He said the group ``met a couple of people . .
. then went outside and
we didn't see them again.''
Witczak was assigned to the South Chicago district after graduating from
the police academy in
1987. She was promoted to gang crimes specialist in 1995 and detective
last December, when she
was assigned to the Area 2 property crimes unit.
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two officers
Associated Press, 07/22/98 14:55
MOUNT HOLLY, N.J. (AP) - Two Camden County sheriff's
officers who had been cleared of drug and weapons charges
by a grand jury will lose their jobs anyway, Camden County
sheriff Michael W. McLaughlin said Wednesday.
McLaughlin decided Monday to fire officer Angelique
Satchel, 30, and her mother Nina, 51, for failing to take action
against drug activity going on in their home, he said.
The pair, notified of the sheriff's decision Tuesday, are
planning to appeal to an administrative law judge.
``It wasn't an easy decision, but I felt it was best for
the department,'' said McLaughlin. ``As much as I feel for the
officers, they didn't do their duty the way they were
supposed to.''
Mario J. D'Alfonso, an attorney representing Nina Satchel,
said Wednesday the sheriff's decision to fire his client
is ``totally off the wall.''
``They were finally exonerated by a grand jury and the
sheriff basically says, `We don't care. We're still releasing
them,''' D'Alfonso said. ``It's an absolute travesty. We need to
get this in front of a neutral magistrate.''
The mother and daughter were suspended without pay April 1
after police raided their Camden apartment.
Police found an unregistered 9 mm semiautomatic weapon,
crack cocaine, marijuana and paraphernalia. The drugs were
found in the bedroom belonging to Nina Satchel's son Dana,
24.
All three Satchels were arrested and charged with
illegally owning weapons, manufacturing drugs and illegally
fortifying their home.
A Burlington County grand jury cleared both women June 9.
The grand jury did indict Dana Satchel on a charge of
possession of cocaine with intent to distribute.
The case was heard in Burlington County because the mother
and daughter worked in the Camden County courts.
The Satchels were under scrutiny because of Angelique's
relationship to accused drug kingpin Kenneth Waller - the
father of her son. Waller has pleaded guilty to federal
drug charges and admitted selling cocaine in Camden.
The department held a one-day hearing earlier this month
that lasted about two hours. Undersheriff Joseph P. Dougherty,
the hearing officer, recommended that the two be fired because
they ``knew or should have known'' about the drug
activities, McLaughlin said.
But D'Alfonso said Nina did not know about the drug
activity.
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a suspended jail sentence after pleading guilty to driving
under the influence of alcohol.
Sgt. Lawrence J. Pagan, 41, received a six-month suspended
sentence Tuesday in Norwich Superior Court. He also was
sentenced to a year of probation, 100 hours of community
service, he was fined $778 and his driver's license was
suspended for a year.
Norwich police arrested Pagan, of East Lyme, on June 17
when an officer saw his civilian car being driven in a
clumsy manner. Pagan's blood alcohol level was measured at 0.22,
more than twice the legal limit of 0.10.
Pagan's arrest sparked controversy when the police
department omitted his name from their daily arrest log.
Norwich police said the omission was accidental.
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July 23, 1998
By RIK STEVENS
Gazette Reporter
SARATOGA SPRINGS - A Saratoga County Sheriff's Department deputy was
sentenced
Wednesday to three years' probation and ordered to stay away from his
wife for allegedly menacing
her with a loaded gun, threatening to rape her and tightening a belt
around her neck, City Court
records show.
Scott A. Leonard, 30, originally was charged with second-degree menacing
and keeping an
unlicensed gun after an incident in the home he shared with his wife and
three-month-old son on
Hilton Drive in Moreau.
In June, he pleaded guilty to the gun charge, a class A misdemeanor, and
had the lesser charge of
menacing dismissed. District Attorney James A. Murphy III said at the
time of Leonard's plea that
there were proof problems in the case, which came down to Leonard's word
vs. his wife's.
By taking the higher charge, Leonard gets three years' probation instead
of one year, Murphy said.
Under the terms of the order of protection, Leonard can have nothing to
do with his wife until July
22, 1999. He can phone her only to set up court-ordered visitation with
their son.
According to a statement by Leonard's 28-year-old wife, the incident
started after an argument
around 7 p.m. on May 11. Mrs. Leonard locked herself in the bedroom
after the argument.
She gave the following account:
After getting his wife to unlock the door, Leonard told her he was going
to rape her and picked up a
pair of handcuffs.
The wife told police she wasn't sure Leonard was serious and went along
at first, allowing him to put
the handcuffs on.
Eventually, he got a pistol, an unlicensed .357-caliber Ruger revolver,
and put it in his mouth, saying
he hated his life, hated his job and hated his wife.
After a trip into the bathroom with the gun at his head, he returned and
pushed it against her temple.
The gun was empty. But then he put one round in the weapon and spun the
chamber. He put his
wife's hands on the gun and pointed it at her head, telling her to pull
the trigger so it would look like
suicide.
He then spun the chamber and pulled the trigger twice; the statement was
unclear as to where the
gun allegedly was aimed.
After putting the gun down, he picked up a belt and put it first around
his neck, pulling tight as if to
choke himself. He then put it around his wife's neck and pulled her by
the neck toward the
bathroom; she was still holding the baby.
Later, he began throwing lit matches into the closet in the bedroom.
Leonard took two weeks' vacation at the time of his arrest, according to
Saratoga County Sheriff
James D. Bowen. Bowen did not return a call on Wednesday. It could not
be determined if any
action will be taken at the sheriff's department.
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been accused of dealing more than $23 million worth of cocaine over
the past six years.
Officer Frank Monticello, Andrew Hetu, Alberto Blasco and David
Blasco were due to appear in court today on the charges.
Authorities said the four are suspected of being part of a
group
responsible for distributing 20 kilograms of cocaine per month in
South Florida, Tampa and in neighboring Alabama since 1992.
One kilogram of cocaine is worth $16,000 to $18,000 on the
street.
Federal, state and local authorities planned at least five more
arrests.
If convicted, the men face a maximum penalty of a life sentence.
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and boss tormented her with lewd comments and then threatened her
to keep quiet has filed a $200 million sexual harassment lawsuit
against the police department.
In the federal lawsuit, Sgt. Michelle Jarman-Brown and her
husband, police Lt. Robert Brown, allege that Jarman-Brown's
commanding officer once told her to come to a meeting in a short
skirt.
``You can be like the ring girls at the boxing match, wear a
bikini and walk around holding a sign over your head,'' Inspector
Arthur Storch said, according to the suit filed last week in
federal court in Brooklyn.
The suit also charges that Brooklyn South narcotics officers
kept a computer screen saver of two women having sex and that when
Jarman-Brown complained about an officer reading Hustler magazine
in the office, she found the semen-stained publication stuffed in
her desk.
When the sergeant went to Internal Affairs with evidence,
Storch
told Brown, ``Tell your wife that I want my property back, the
things she stole from my office ... or she's dead and you're
dead,'' Jarman-Brown told the Daily News in today's editions.
After going to Internal Affairs, Jarman-Brown was transferred
to
a Manhattan unit where she was called ``a rat.'' She has since been
transferred to nearby Staten Island.
Brown faces departmental charges for going to a confidential
police location to confront his wife's old bosses -- charges, the
suit alleges, that were drummed up to intimidate him.
A police department spokesman declined to comment on the
lawsuit
today.
The lawsuit comes just as another sex-related scandal has
tarnished the city's police department. Last week, allegations were
disclosed that officers in a key Manhattan precinct allowed a
brothel to operate while they had sex with prostitutes at a nearby
apartment during working hours.
None
AP 24-JUL-98
DAYTON, Ohio (AP) -- The police chief on Friday fired a patrolman who
arrested a fast-food restaurant worker, then doused her with pepper
spray in a
dispute over payment for his food.
Police Chief Ronald Lowe said Officer Michael McDonald's conduct
violated
the community's trust.
`There is no room for callousness, nonconformance to community and
police
standards, nor brutality in policing today,'' Lowe said.
McDonald, 33, who was a police officer for 12 years, had been on unpaid
leave.
He had said he gave Brandy Martin, 17, a $20 bill to pay for his food
Feb. 17 at
a Wendy's restaurant drive-through window. She said it was a $10 bill.
McDonald walked into the restaurant and confronted Ms. Martin and the
two
argued. McDonald used the pepper spray on Ms. Martin when she refused to
leave with him after he arrested her.
McDonald could not be located for a response Friday. His lawyer, Robert
Caspar Jr., did not return calls to his office.
The officer was found innocent of assault charges last month.
None
Associated Press, 07/23/98 02:17
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - A former supervisor at the county
jail got a little bit greedy - and it cost him.
Brian Small, accused of bilking Cumberland County out of
more than $18,000, pleaded no contest Wednesday to three
counts of theft in Superior Court.
Small used his authority for his own gain, said Cumberland
County District Attorney Stephanie Anderson. In one case,
he kept a new Ford Thunderbird won by the county in a
food-show drawing, sold it, and kept the money for himself, she
said.
On other occasions, she said, Small used credits and
bonuses awarded to purchasers at food shows for his own
benefit.
By entering a ``no contest'' plea, Small was not admitting
guilt, but was willing to be found guilty without a trial.
Under terms of a plea agreement with prosecutors, Small
will serve no jail term. Instead, he was sentenced to three
consecutive 120-day jail terms, all suspended, with one
year probation, and ordered to pay $18,382 in restitution to
the county.
Anderson said the county was willing to forego jail time
and felony charges in order to get its money back.
``The state is very adamant about getting restitution,''
Anderson said. ``I don't care if he has to work two or
three jobs.''
Small began working at the jail in November 1993. He was
fired on July 8.
None
In the Ranks
Statistics show bias in NYPD
Black and Hispanic cops have said for years
that their superiors treat them worse and
discipline them more than their white counterparts.
Cops are all the same color, blue, the
brass has responded, and the NYPD,
unlike the rest of the world, treats
everyone the same.
But even as they continued to repeat this line, police
officials were quietly compiling figures that show the
systematic inequality they so vehemently denied.
For the past 20 years, minority and female cops have
been accused of serious misconduct that can result in
dismissal or suspension at far higher rates than their
white male colleagues, according to the department's
year-by-year computer summaries of disciplinary
actions.
The records, which were obtained by the Daily
News, have never before been made public.
Last year, for instance, white cops comprised 68%
964 cops accused of serious misconduct were
minorities.
And while 13.7% of uniformed personnel were
black, they made up 35.1% of those brought up on
charges.
Since 1977, the department has meted out its
toughest discipline, called charges and specifications,
to black cops at two to three times their actual
numbers in the department, to women at twice their
number and to Hispanics at 1 1/2 times their number.
The only serious drop in the rate of black cops
disciplined occurred from 1990 to 1993, the four
years that David Dinkins was mayor.
It plummeted during those years, from 34.4% of
cops charged in 1989 to 24.8% in 1993. In 1989,
black cops made up only 11% of the department.
In 1994, the first year of the Giuliani administration,
the percentages of both black and Hispanic cops
disciplined began to rise again and is now near
record levels for both groups.
"We've always known this was happening, but for
the first time we have some proof," said Sgt.
Anthony Miranda, president of the Latino Officers
Association.
Late yesterday, the Guardians, the black police
officers group, and the Latino Officers Association
filed a class-action federal equal opportunity
complaint. They plan to use the department's own
computer records to force a comprehensive review
of disciplinary procedures.
"It's outrageous that this kind of de facto
discrimination and disparate treatment has been
going on for so long," said civil rights lawyer Bonita
Zelman, the attorney for the two groups who has
doggedly defended dozens of black and Hispanic
cops at departmental trials.
Police officials again repeated their timeworn line.
"We discipline people who violate our regulations
without regard to their color or their gender," said
Deputy Commissioner Marilyn Mode. "Your
premise is absurd."
But it is inconceivable that every year for the past 20
years commanders have somehow found greater
fault with black, Hispanic and female cops.
Mike Julian, a former chief of personnel in the
department who also was a respected precinct
commander for many years, believes some of the
disparity results because most commanders, being
white, don't understand minority cops.
"If a white commander has a misunderstanding with a
black cop, it's insubordination," Julian said. "If it
happens with a white cop, the guy's excused as just
being stupid."
"There's always been more scrutiny applied to
Latinos, blacks and women," said Hector Soto, who
was in charge of prosecuting police misconduct
under Ben Ward, the city's first black police
commissioner.
Ironically, it was under Ward that black cops had the
most charges brought against them.
"There was a lot of antagonism in the department
against minority cops in those years, because of the
quota systems," Soto said. "The old-timers felt the
new cops weren't qualified, and I was constantly
getting a lot of crap charges from the precinct
commanders.
"We would reject a lot of the stuff and send it back
down for lighter punishment, like command
disciplines. But we never tried to keep track of how
it was breaking down racially."
Female cops have fared even worse than Hispanic
cops. Since 1985, 20% to 25% of cops charged
with misconduct have been women, even though they
have never made up more than 15% of the force.
Only in rare instances, however, has discrimination
actually been proven.
In 1986, Officer Mary Lenihan was fired after it was
determined that she was psychologically unfit. She
had repeatedly complained to her superiors that she
was treated unfairly in her assignments.
A federal judge ordered Lenihan's reinstatement
when her lawyer, Janice Goodman, showed that 19
male cops — who had been ordered to undergo
treatment for emotional disorders following serious
infractions, including an officer who shot up a bar
and another who had 17 abuse complaints against
him — had not been fired.
None
Cop Deal Common
By BILL EGBERT and LEO STANDORA
Daily News Staff Writers
Eighth Ave. hookers last night said it was
common knowledge that cops demanded
sexual favors from them in return for protection.
One woman with long blond hair and magenta lips
said a cop threatened to delay her case if she did not
let him take pictures of her bare chest in a holding
cell. She said she complied.
"If you're out here a lot, you try not to get on
anybody's bad side, so you don't complain," she
said. "And they know that if you do whatever they
ask, it'll make it easy for you."
Other prostitutes said they had heard similar stories.
"Sure it happens, baby. Every day," said Gloria, who
stood in a sweat-soaked T-shirt and shorts, sipping a
cocktail from a McDonald's cup near the Port
Authority Bus Terminal. "Where you from anyway,
Mars?"
"But not me," she said. "It's the girls right over at the
Port Authority. That's why they can walk the streets
all night and never get busted."
Nearby, Chante, a green-eyed streetwalker in a
revealing halter top, said, "Me, either. . . . But I
know somebody who told me it happened to her."
At 41st St. and Eighth Ave. several hookers stood
chatting with each other and passersby — apparently
unafraid of trouble with the police.
None
Asked Cop's Aid: DA
By VIRGINIA BREEN
Daily News Staff Writer
The off-duty police officer indicted in the
shooting of a squeegee man confided to
another cop on the scene, "I may need your help on
this," Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson
charged yesterday.
Officer Michael Meyer allegedly made the comment
to Officer Sheila Hennessy after telling a sergeant
and two other cops that Antoine Reid "tried to rob
me. He hit me in the face. He hit me with the
squeegee," prosecutors said.
Johnson would not
speculate on what was
meant by the alleged
statement, saying it would
be explained at trial.
Meyer's lawyer, Bruce
Smirti, did not deny that
Meyer asked Hennessy for
help. He said: "There's
nothing sinister there. He
meant that she would have to be dragged into it as a
witness."
But Clifford Stern, Reid's attorney in his $100 million
civil case against the city, said, "It would appear that
Officer Meyer was looking to have some aid in the
coverup."
In a Bronx Supreme Court room packed with more
than 50 cops, Meyer, 28, pleaded not guilty to
charges of attempted murder, assault, criminal use of
a firearm and reckless endangerment.
He is accused of firing one 9-mm. shot into Reid's
chest during a June 14 argument near the Major
Deegan Expressway at E. 138th St. Meyer was
heading home from a Yankees game with a friend
and her 6-year-old son when Reid sprayed his car
window.
"It is our position that there is no legal or reasonable
justification for the use of the weapon," Johnson said.
"This was clearly beyond the bounds of the law."
Reid, still recovering from surgery to remove his
spleen, said he was "sort of happy" about the
indictment."But I'm in a whole lot of pain," he said.
"It's not great, getting shot for nothing."
Meyer, who was suspended without pay, will return
to modified duty today, Smirti said. Before the
shooting, Meyer had been assigned to building
maintenance because of seven earlier civilian
complaints. Most involved the use of excessive
force.
In another development, the Patrolmen's Benevolent
Association, which had withheld support from
Meyer, rallied behind him yesterday. "We support
this officer 100%," said PBA Manhattan trustee
Edward Mahoney.
None
Juan Polk, an engineer for Voice of America in
New York, was driving home on the New
Jersey Turnpike two weeks ago when
he saw a dark van and a pair of police
cars at the side of the road. He slowed
to watch, then came to a dead stop.
"This can't be happening," he
remembers saying to himself. "The sounds were
pop-pop-pop. Then another pop. Then more pops."
Polk is the first person to come forward and say he
witnessed state troopers shooting at a van carrying
four New York college students.
The van had been stopped, allegedly for speeding,
and the officers say that they fired when it tried to run
them down twice — once going backward, and a
second time going forward.
But rather than a van bearing down on the officers,
as described in the official account, Polk says the
troopers fired repeatedly into its rear window as the
van rolled away and into a ditch.
He also says he saw two state police cars at the
scene. The original police statement mentioned only
one.
"They were shooting for the back of the van. It was
rolling forward, away from the troopers. I thought it
was a drug stop that went bad," Polk says.
The matter now goes to a state grand jury in
Trenton, which will decide if the troopers were
legally justified in shooting at the van.
The passengers were young men from New York
City who were going to try out for a basketball team
at North Carolina Central. One has been given a
new kneecap. Another has lost use of his right arm.
They have not been charged with any crimes.
Before any details were made public by police, Polk
spoke to Larry Freund, the New York bureau chief
for Voice of America. "He's always coming in with
stories about things he sees on the Turnpike," says
Freund, "but this was different, because it involved
shooting. I heard about it from him first."
Polk, 44, says he was torn about coming forward
because he has been frequently stopped on his daily
commute between New York and his home in
Philadelphia. "I wouldn't want to impeach anybody,"
Polk said yesterday, "but what I saw didn't look
right."
On the evening of April 23, he says, he signed out of
work about 9 p.m., then traveled to Harrison, N.J.,
where he usually leaves his car in a park-and-ride
lot. He entered the Turnpike at interchange 11.
"The dark van let me enter the road," Polk says.
For most of the ride, he was ahead of the dark blue
van. Somewhere around exit 8, he believes, the van
passed him on the left. Then he noticed a state police
car passing on his left. A moment later, he saw
flashing lights of a second police car in his rear view.
"I thought it was for me, so I was worrying about my
papers," Polk says. "Then the second police car
passed me by."
For a few miles — he is uncertain of the distance —
he did not see the cars and van pulling over. "Then,
way ahead of me, on the right side, I could see the
spinning lights move onto the shoulder.
"I was in the center lane, and was going to move
over to the left, but didn't," Polk says. "I had slowed
down, came to a direct stop, and watched. It
seemed to go on for an eternity, but it must have
been 10 or 15 seconds."
Two police cars were parked nearly side by side, he
says. The dark blue van was on the shoulder, about
20 or 30 feet ahead of the patrol cars.
He says he saw two officers leaning over the doors
— one on the extreme left, on the driver's side of the
police car parked nearest traffic. The other officer
was on the extreme right, aiming from the front
passenger door of the second car.
"They were in firing position. The one behind on the
right side, he's shooting," Polk says. "You hear the
noise of the bullet hitting the car. Then the thing —
the van — rolls forward, a little to the left toward the
road, and then it lurches to the right. It's going
toward a ravine, or a ditch, and some bushes.
"There was a pause, then I hear more shots," Polk
says. "I couldn't see anyone in the van. It looked like
they were shooting out an empty van.
"The last thing I can see is the back door of the van,
when it went down in the ravine, attempting to open."
He then drove on. Polk apparently saw the second
phase of the traffic stop. During the first part, the van
rolled backward, apparently hitting one officer. His
backward onto the highway, and caused a Honda to
crash and burn.
"I didn't see that," Polk says.
Polk's story is consistent with the account given by
Danny Reyes, a front seat passenger in the van who
was critically wounded. After the car rolled
backward onto the highway, Reyes says, he reached
over from the passenger seat and shoved the gear
lever into forward. He then steered the van back
onto the shoulder.
That appears to be when Polk arrived on the scene,
if his account is true.
Speaking from his hospital bed in Camden, N.J.,
Reyes recalled: "I said, 'Officer, the car is not on
park yet. Please don't shoot, just let it stop.' The car
was rolling toward the trees. That's when I got shot
in my back. It went down in the ditch, and I kept my
hands in the air."
Polk said yesterday that if asked, he will tell his story
to authorities and to attorneys for the passengers in
the van.
"I expect he will be part of the investigation," said
police spokesman John Hagerty.
As for two cars being on the scene, Hagerty said the
two troopers who fired their weapons, James Kenna
and John Hogan, were in one car.
"I can't comment on when backup might have
arrived," Hagerty said.
None
town of Wheeler is on desk duty while his indictment for perjury runs
its course. He gave testimony on July 13th that he found marijuana in
the fanny pack of suspect Robert Curtis Tillman, but no marijuana was
logged into evidence. DPS spokeswoman Tela Mange said Estes is assigned
to administrative tasks. District Attorney John Mann said Estes made up
the marijuana allegation to link Tillman to drugs found in his van.
Tillman's conviction was later thrown out.
Dittohead
<sfur...@cybertours.com> bravely stuck his foot in his mouth and
muttered:
>> No threat. The threat is that you never know when
>> the government will decide to kill or execute you for
>> things that should have nothing to do with government.
>
>Your perceived status as a bona fide nut case rivaling Tom
>Alciere is nearly established!
Please, can I join in? I wanna be the same kinda nut!
There are a few, specific "rights" outlined in our constitution that
the government enjoys. All the rest (of the rights) belong to the
people, even if those rights are not spelled out in the constitution,
(see Amendments 9 & 10)
I believe what the above guy was saying, is if the government decides
to outlaw crapgrass, and make possession of it a felony, & you are
suspected of cultivating it, that suspicion & police acting upon it,
COULD get you killed.
Regardless of the morality or imorality of crabgrass, this power to
imprison & justifiably kill a fleeing crapgrass dealer (felon) is not
one that the gov't owns.
This "law" has nothing to do with that piece of paper. It is not part
& parcel of gov't's duties, outlined in that document.
>
>> The government has decided what is right for all and
>> has enacted laws to enforce their version of right
>> on those not interested in living that way.
>
>In other words, you hate the concept of majority rule?
In America, we have escaped (allegedly) from the tyranny of democracy
by creating a democratic-republic where the individual is (was)
sovereign. (and superior to government)
>
>> Defending yourself from government attack is right,
>> also illegal. Resisting when innocent is right,
>> also illegal. Defending yourself from attack by
>> cops acting outside the Constitution is right,
>> also illegal.
>
>I have a feeling that you'd like to totally ignore a few
>parts of the Constitution yourself? Your words games are not
>that impressive. Remember, you yourself said "Defining
>innocent is very tricky."
The uprising at Warsaw was against the law.
Something to consider.
>
>> Resisting arrest when innocent is illegal.
>> It is the right thing to do though.
>
>Are we then to let each and every criminal suspect decide
>their own guilt or innocence? What a ridiculous proposition!
Actually we have laws to govern the treatment of suspected criminals.
But our gov't has seen fit to disregard those laws in favor of
expediency.
<snip>
>You avoided the questions posed by the original poster (Mr.
>Young) quite nicely. At best you presented your reasons for
>hating government in general, but I think you failed even in
>that respect. You're either inadvertently leaving some
>important issues out or your avoiding them purposely?
Whether it is true or not, in OUR minds, cops & government are the
same entity.
>Steve
None
>
>
>
> ==
> http://www.ljx.com/topstories/072798new2.htm
>
> Pot of Gold at End of Lawsuit
>
> New York Law Journal
> July 27, 1998
>
> BY DEBORAH PINES
>
> IN 1993, WHEN New York State Police seized marijuana and photographic
> slides of cannabis plants from the Orange County home of a High Times
> photographer, the man paid the price: a guilty plea to drug charges and
> a $500 fine. Now, five years later, it's the government's turn to pay.
>
> For destroying the 347 images of pot plants that belonged to Boris
> Raishevich, the state must pay him $24,000, a federal judge has ruled.
>
> That amount will compensate Mr. Raishevich, whose work has appeared in
> the pot-growers' magazine under the names "Elmer Budd" or "Budd
> Greenberg," for his potential lost income, ruled Southern District Judge
> William C. Conner in Raishevich v. Foster, 95 Civ. 3153.
>
> Both sides, contesting the damages issue in a two-day bench trial, on
> Friday hailed Judge Conner's ruling.
>
> Mr. Raishevich's lawyer, Simone Monasebian, said it teaches the State
> Police an important lesson: "You can't just destroy things you don't
> like."
>
> Joseph Mahoney, a spokesman for the State Attorney General's Office,
> said the government will not appeal what he jokingly termed an award of
> "small pot-atoes."
>
> Transparencies Seized
>
> Police seized the transparencies along with 59 marijuana plants and
> bags containing more than four pounds of marijuana on Nov. 5, 1993, when
> they raided Mr. Raishevich's home in Blooming Grove, N.Y. About a year
> later, Mr. Raishevich, who now lives in nearby Chester, N.Y., pleaded
> guilty to criminal possession of marijuana and paid a $500 fine.
>
> When the photographer learned his transparencies had been destroyed
> by Charles Foster, a state police officer, he sued. The State conceded
> liability but contested Mr. Raishevich's claims he suffered between
> $261,000 and $522,000 in damages.
>
> In a 14-page ruling, filed July 17 in White Plains, Judge Conner
> found Mr. Raishevich entitled to $24,000.
>
> In determining compensation, Judge Conner first noted that Mr.
> Raishevich's images were not unique. "Unlike a fleeting historical
> event, which by definition is incapable of recreation, cannabis plants
> are by their very nature capable of reproduction," Judge Conner wrote.
>
> In addition, the judge noted that Mr. Raishevich "offered little
> evidence of past earnings from use of his cannabis transparencies." He
> noted about 10 photographs that appeared in High Times including two for
> which he was paid $200 each and one for which he was recently paid $400.
>
> Judge Conner also found that while Mr. Raishevich was a "reasonably
> skilled" photographer, the market demand for cannabis photographs is
> limited. He also found Mr. Raishevich had not offered credible evidence
> he attempted or intended to expand his marketing efforts.
>
> In the end, Judge Conner fixed damages by noting that in his peak
> years Mr. Raishevich earned $400, total, for two publications (at $200
> each). If he "maintained this peak pace of two publications per year for
> the next 30 years," the court pegged his lost income at $12,000.
>
> Judge Conner then doubled the damages after noting that the
> destruction of the transparencies may have hindered Mr. Raishevich's
> "efforts in selling publication rights" and his "ability to prove his
> damages with greater specificity."
>
> Ms. Monasebian of Michael Kennedy, P.C. represented Mr. Raishevich.
> Bruce A. Brown, a State Assistant Attorney General, represented Mr.
> Foster of the State Police.
>
> Copyright 1998, The New York Law Publishing Company. All Rights Reserved.
'
None
The dead man's eye followed you across the room.
The surreal color picture had been
blown up and placed on an easel in the
back of the courtroom. In death,
Anthony Baez seemed to study us.
The eye told the tale of his death.
Police Officer Francis X. Livoti is charged with
choking Baez to death. The cop chose not to return
the dead stare. He glanced once, just to be sure the
eye could not see him, then looked down and
studied his hands.
The prosecutor showed the autopsy photograph as
evidence of Baez' choking death. The dead man's
eyelid was held open by a pair of fingers in yellow
gloves. In death, Baez was still gasping. There were
little red explosions, called petechial hemorrhages, on
the edge of the eye.
"Do you see petechia in asthma cases," the
prosecutor asked the witness, referring to the cause
the defense cites for Baez' death.
"Almost never," replied Charles Hirsch, the city's
chief medical examiner.
>From the large windows in the Bronx courtroom you
could see a great spectacle simmering in the streets
below. The city was getting ready for baseball. There
had been talk at this hour that playoff games would
be delayed because a player had spit in the face of
an umpire, another uniformed authority figure in blue.
The player was forgiven, at least for now, and the
games were played.
In this building, visible from home plate at Yankee
Stadium, a cop is on trial because he is alleged to
have choked a man whose football accidentally hit
his police cruiser. Now, forgiveness is all but
impossible.
Livoti's supporters - his lawyer, the PBA, his fellow
officers at the 46th Precinct - claimed the case
would be won on medical evidence. But the other
day Dr. Dominic DiMaio, a former city medical
examiner, took the stand for Livoti. He is a walking
non sequitur, not unlike Casey Stengel in his most
lucid moments. The judge asked DiMaio to leave.
He did, and his nonsensical testimony was stricken
from the record.
Livoti is to take the stand in his own defense today.
It is his last best shot.
Sport in general, and the Yankees in particular, are
enjoyable because they keep reality away. Even on
their worst day, the Yankees are easier to stomach
than autopsy photographs.
George Steinbrenner says he wants to leave the
Bronx because of crime, and this case is unwittingly
his argument in microcosm. Crime has fallen some,
but it would fall a lot more, experts agree, if people
respected instead of suspected the cops who patrol
the Bronx. If Livoti goes unpunished, the people will
argue that there is no justice. Once you lose order,
who cares about baseball.
This is a win both the Bronx and the city need.
On the eve of Livoti's testimony, the prosecution
called an amazing rebuttal witness. Livoti's expert
witnesses had insisted Baez died of an acute asthma
attack after being arrested. The prosecution
answered with Hirsch. Every year, you could fill
Yankee Stadium with his office's work.
He pointed to bruises in a photograph of the dead
man's neck. They are choke marks.
"Probably a minute or more of constant pressure,"
Hirsch said. "They were caused by a forceful
compression."
It is rare for a city medical examiner to take the stand
against a cop. But a medical examiner is useless to
the city if he is afraid of the truth. Hirsch said it again,
and again, nine different ways. Anthony Baez died of
asphyxia caused by pressure to his neck and chest.
At most, asthma may have contributed to the death,
but it was not the cause, Hirsch said.
"Could someone without asthma have expired with
these same injuries?" the prosecutor asked.
"Absolutely. Mr. Baez had perfectly healthy lungs."
There is no jury, and that is good for Livoti. His case
would not play to an audience. The judge who will
decide the outcome has heard one cop break the
blue wall of silence and contradict Livoti's fellow
cops. He has heard one mumbling doctor and
ordered him off the stand, and heard from a precise,
articulate medical examiner. There isn't a cough of
asthma in Livoti's story.
Now we will hear from the cop, a man some say has
swaggered through his professional life with a
clenched fist and a curse on his lips. Still, some cops
want to call him a hero. He is idolized by his union. It
is odd, but Francis X. Livoti, suspect, is worse than
some of the most despicable characters who play
across the street from the Bronx courthouse.
Original Story Date: 10/02/96
Dittohead
>- Paperboy2000 - wrote:
> If your little binary is suppose to
>shock the senses it might help to caption it more
>appropriately and perhaps post the circumstances surrounding
>the photo....
>
PLEASE don't post cool binaries here!
My (and most other) ISP's filter binaries from non-binaries groups!
>Steve
None
Hizzoner's silent shame
The lies can end today in the Bronx, where a
single judge can save the NYPD and the
borough. A nest of perjury has been uncovered in a
homicide case against a cop.
Rudy Giuliani, as a young prosecutor,
made his name putting lying cops in
jail. But he has said nothing about
Police Officer Francis X. Livoti. His
silence is deafening, and arguably the
wrong message to the worst of the
city's police officers.
As he ranted once again about bail for an accused
cop killer, most of the city was focused on Livoti, an
accused civilian killer.
Anthony Rivers and Livoti are charged with the same
crime, criminally negligent homicide. They both have
terrible records of violence. They both have no
respect for the court. The cop once threatened to kill
a judge.
Which crime puts society more at risk? The wife
abuser who breaks a mirror on which Officer
Vincent Guidice falls, or the police officer who
breaks Anthony Baez? Why is the mayor screaming
about one accused killer being freed on bail and not
making any noise at all about the other?
Doesn't he realize that cops who kill innocent,
law-abiding citizens put all cops in jeopardy? Is the
mayor advocating selective prosecution?
Surely, this silence has nothing to do with the dubious
relationship between Livoti and Louis Anemone, the
Mace-spraying chief of the department. The cop and
chief are said to be blood relatives. Anemone
described Livoti in heroic terms after Baez' untimely
and questionable demise. So many questions were
raised at Livoti's trial for the death of the 29-year-old
man that the judge said the proceeding was awash in
a nest of perjury.
If there was an attempt to circumvent the truth in this
case, how high did it go? After Livoti's lawyer said
there was a clear discrepancy in the testimony of
cops, Judge Gerald Sheindlin replied, "That's putting
it gently. There is a terrible conflict."
Many of the lies that were Livoti's defense have been
clearly disproved. As Sheindlin agreed during closing
arguments, Baez died not of asthma, but with
asthma.
Then Livoti's lawyer, Marshall Trager, admitted that
his client may have choked Baez while breaking up a
family touch football game. Trager said that even if
Baez died from "neck compression" the death was
"not the result of criminal intent." The lawyer had
misstated the law, and the judge corrected him.
"It's not intent," Sheindlin said, pointing out that
"intent" is not part of this homicide charge. The law,
125.10 of the New York State penal code reads: "A
person is guilty of criminally negligent homicide when
with criminal negligence, he causes the death of
another person."
The cop and his lawyer thought that a single judge
would be easier than a Bronx jury. Traditionally,
judges tend to side with cops in these matters. But
unless you count the football that bounced harmlessly
off Livoti's cruiser, there was no weapon in this case.
The judge isn't looking for a trapdoor. He and his
wife, Judy Sheindlin, a tough Family Court judge, are
two of the city's best. You do not lie in the Sheindlin
household. Her book about her career, released this
year, is called, "Don't Pee On My Leg and Tell Me
It's Raining."
As soon as Sheindlin renders his decision this
morning, Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson
should begin untangling the nest of perjury.
Another nest, meanwhile, is already being
assembled. The mayor has put himself right at the
center of the Guidice case. That cop bled to death
after falling on a mirror. In the Bronx, prosecutors
and detectives, who are afraid to talk for fear of
being crushed by Rudy Rage, say they believe the
criminally negligent homicide case against Rivers has
been screwed up. And the mayor's mouth may even
allow the suspect to walk, they argue.
There are two sets of investigative reports in that
case, they said. The police interview files, called
DD5's, are typed up by the investigating detectives.
The first set was filed after they interviewed the cops
in the apartment with Guidice. Then the cops, who
are witnesses, changed the details, the investigators
say, to bolster the mayor's argument that Guidice's
death was an intentional murder. The cops were
interviewed again and a second set of DD5's was
typed up and put in the case file.
Both sets will be turned over to Rivers' defense
attorney as part of the discovery process. The
conflict can only help the defense.
And that is why you hear the constant braying from
City Hall about this case. The mayor knows what is
coming. But it doesn't explain his silence in the Livoti
case. A conviction here will say a lot about cops and
equal justice in the Bronx.
Original Story Date: 10/07/96
None
Do Job on Justice
There was a day last year when they first
brought Francis Livoti to court as a defendant.
He did not want to go through the metal detector at
the main entrance.
Sorry, said the court officer, these are the rules.
But I'm On The Job, Livoti had said in
the capital-letter tone that a police Job
comes with. Livoti wanted to walk into
the courthouse as a police officer,
instead of a common criminal
defendant — one of the "skells" so
despised by the cops.
Everybody has to go through the metal detector, the
court officer insisted.
Livoti stormed away, walking around to the other
side of the building until he found an entrance where
people recognized his stature.
Who could blame Francis Livoti for believing that he
had privileges? A few years ago, in that very
courthouse, he had threatened to kill a judge and a
witness who had annoyed him. He had, it was said,
broken a man's jaw over next to nothing. A dozen
times, members of the public had complained that he
was brutal, rude, trouble.
He had even shoved a lieutenant.
With powerful patrons in the Police Department, not
once did Livoti catch any trouble — until he got
annoyed when a football hit his patrol car, and a man
named Anthony Baez ended up dead.
But even as Livoti endured a criminal trial, time has
proven him entirely right about his privileges.
Yesterday morning, Bronx Supreme Court Justice
Gerald Sheindlin declared: "The defendant is not on
trial for being a bad cop."
As a matter of fact, and law, that was exactly why
Livoti was on trial.
He put Baez in a choke hold that violated police
regulations and training, and Baez died.
Livoti's status was also why the judge railed against
Livoti: "Nest of perjury . . . demeaning . . . insulting .
. . rude . . . confrontational . . . raw disrespect."
Theatrics.
Backstage, Livoti was personally rescued by the
judge — not only in yesterday's not-guilty verdict,
but the reinterpretation of the testimony of the most
devastating witness against him, the chief medical
examiner of New York.
Dr. Charles Hirsch had left no room for doubt about
what killed Anthony Baez: "The compression of his
neck, in my opinion, is the dominant cause of his
death," Hirsch had testified.
The prosecutors sat down. So did Livoti's lawyer.
The cop was drowning in evidence.
"Now I have some questions," said Sheindlin.
The judge drew up a complicated scenario that we
can describe only as Choke Hold-Interruptus: Baez
was put in a choke hold, but was only knocked
unconscious. He was still alive and woke up to
resume his struggle with the police officers who were
cuffing him. A cop leaned on his back. The
compression caused Baez to have an asthma attack
and die.
"Is that consistent with the evidence that you
observed during autopsy?" asked Sheindlin.
"Yes sir," said Hirsch, "it could be."
Sheindlin had what he needed, and so did Livoti. The
next morning, the police officer did not take the
witness stand in his own defense. Why should he? If
Baez had died from a choke hold, Livoti was guilty.
If he died from compression of his chest, that was
unfortunate, but not a crime.
So Sheindlin had managed to get the medical
examiner to say that Baez — after being choked for
"a minute or more" — might have been knocked
out, then awoke to fight again. And while the medical
examiner clearly did not believe that chain of events,
the judge used it to support the testimony of two
shaky witnesses.
"The court," said Sheindlin yesterday, "cannot ignore
the fact that Dr. Hirsch's opinion is consistent with
and supports, in important areas, the testimony of
Sgt. Monahan and Police Officer Erotokritou."
Of course, not William Monahan, not Mario
Erotokritou, not one of the six cops on the scene —
not one — said they saw Livoti's hands on Baez'
neck. He had been choked for "an interval measuring
a minute or more," Hirsch said.
No cop saw Livoti choke Baez for a minute. But
Baez' father did and said so.
Livoti sat in court yesterday, eyes down, as the judge
rambled on for 10 pages. At the last page, a
bodyguard carrying a walkie-talkie suddenly
appeared at Livoti's table.
'I do find, based on the quality of the evidence
presented, that the people have failed to establish the
guilt of the defendant beyond a . . . " Livoti jumped
to his feet. Before the words "reasonable doubt" and
"not guilty" were uttered by the judge, before the first
wail from the victim's family, the police officer was
out the side door and gone. It was perfectly
rehearsed.
Original Story Date: 10/08/96
None
For two painful years, since the death of their
son Anthony at the hands of a hothead cop
named Francis Livoti, Ramon and Iris Baez have
anticipated this day.
The hardworking couple raised six
children in a small house on Cameron
Place in a rundown section of the
Bronx. Known throughout the area,
they are leaders of the Second
Christian Church and the kind of
people who provided free food each Christmas to
hundreds of their less fortunate neighbors at a nearby
restaurant, owned by one of their relatives.
The Baezes had faith that justice would prevail, that
the senseless killing of their son for the absurd crime
of questioning Livoti's order to stop playing touch
football with his brothers could not possibly go
unpunished. Throughout the three-week trial Iris
Baez, who sat in the front row of the courtroom,
read her Bible at every opportunity.
Then, yesterday morning, the Baezes' faith in blind
justice was strangled as quickly as was the last
breath of their 29-year-old son.
In a watershed verdict destined to become as
notorious as the Michael Stewart case was more
than a decade ago, Bronx Supreme Court Justice
Gerald Sheindlin, after harshly criticizing Livoti's
conduct in arresting Anthony Baez, declared the cop
not guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the
nonjury trial.
His decision sent a chilling and unmistakable signal to
the city's 4 million black and Latino residents: New
York City cops can get away with murder, especially
when their victims are nonwhite.
He concluded that Livoti used a banned choke hold
to arrest and subdue "an otherwise decent and
hardworking young man," and that Baez' death was
caused by asphyxiation, not asthma as the defense
had claimed. But Sheindlin ruled, in a nutshell, that
prosecutors had botched the case and failed to
prove guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt."
Even Ruben Diaz, the conservative minister and
long-time law-and-order supporter of Mayor
Giuliani, could not contain his outrage. "This is
something terrible," he said. "It's saying, 'Kill
whoever you want, we will set you free.' "
For those of us who have carefully chronicled so
many of these kinds of deaths over the years — from
Stewart, the graffiti painter beaten, hogtied and
suffocated while being arrested by six transit cops in
1983, to Eleanor Bumpurs, the 66-year-old woman
killed by shotgun blast in 1984, to Federico Pereira,
the petty thief who suffocated while being subdued
by four cops in Queens in 1991 — it is amazing how
each and every time cops brought to trial are found
not guilty.
The law of averages should have dictated a few
convictions by now.
But when it comes to cops, neither probability nor a
reasonable reading of the law seems to matter. Our
legal system has taken to treating police as a
separate, protected class of citizens. It requires a
much higher burden of proof to establish their guilt.
Take Sheindlin's 10-page decision. It is legal mumbo
jumbo of the highest order. Faced with the
undeniable fact that Livoti had applied a choke hold
to arrest Baez, Sheindlin knew that if the choke hold
caused the man's death, Livoti was criminally
negligent.
The judge opted for another theoretical scenario: The
choke hold made Baez "temporarily unconscious,"
but the victim regained consciousness and put up a
fierce struggle with Livoti and his fellow cops. Then,
while being handcuffed facedown on the pavement,
Baez had an asthma attack and suffocated.
Thus, according to the judge, the choke hold had
nothing to do with Baez' death. This scenario,
Sheindlin said, corresponds to the testimony of two
cops on the scene. The judge neglected to say those
cops claimed Livoti never applied a choke hold to
Baez. In other words, they were lying under oath.
The judge also discounted the eyewitness testimony
of several Baez family members.
"My son was all alone when Livoti had him in that
choke hold," Ramon Baez said in tears yesterday. "I
told Livoti that Anthony had asthma. He wouldn't
listen."
The hothead cop is not that far removed from the
judge who set him free. One used a badge and brute
force against an innocent man. The other used a
black robe and slick words. The message left many
New Yorkers in shock.
Last night, the Rev. Heriberto Lopez and other
family supporters called a huge protest for 5 p.m.
today at the Bronx County Courthouse, just hours
before the Yankees-Orioles playoff game is
scheduled to start down the street.
Original Story Date: 10/08/96
None
They bury the police officer today, and although
he can be eulogized as a fine cop, he cannot
be held up as a hero. Police Officer Brian Jones died
a vigilante, and his death should scare
the city as much as Anthony Baez'.
Several young men, some of them on
parole, stood outside the Urena
bodega in East New York yesterday.
A sticker inside the store with a gun sight says,
"Duck Down."
The Sunday shootout is all the talk of this corner of
Miller Ave., which they call Killer Miller. A few said
they were playing dice against a wall when three men
approached with guns. They hit the ground when the
shooting started. "These guys didn't have their
badges out, and they were just arguing," said a man,
who identified himself as Skip. "Then they pulled
their guns. So now I guess we got to worry about
off-duty cops coming down on us."
Two of the men were cops. The third may have been
a cop's brother. He has a gun conviction. In the early
quicksand of this story, the city focused on the man
shot by the off-duty cops and then bullet fragments.
All information on police is now filtered through City
Hall, where the spokespersons have the credibility of
so many alleged street witnesses.
The bigger story here has nothing to do with a shot
parolee or bullet fragments. When city residents are
questioning the brutality of police, we now have
police vigilantes. Perhaps they only wanted to rattle a
mugger or throw him a beating.
"I been arrested enough times to know this is not
how you grab somebody," said another young man in
a Chicago Bulls cap, who gave his name as Johnson.
"What? Cops don't know how to dial 911."
How was this going to work exactly? Were the cops
going to come down and smack the guy and leave?
Or did they hope to live through a shootout and go
back down the street to watch television? Have they
done this before? This reminds me of that old Clint
Eastwood/Dirty Harry movie, "Magnum Force,"
where cops killed the bad guys instead of arresting
them.
But many witnesses claim the cops did not identify
themselves and drew their guns first. Jean Quarterly,
who was upstairs, says she saw one of the cops
shoot Jones in the back of the head. There are also
lots of bullet holes in the elm trees.
It is sad when any cop dies. But this does not sound
like a line-of-duty death. People who say that shame
the memory of Ray Cannon, the last Brooklyn cop to
be shot to death.
We cannot have cops taking the law into their own
hands. Let's pretend everything the police public
information types say is true. Antoine Windley
robbed Damon Thomas, a cousin of Officer Mark
Thomas, who probably shot his friend Jones in the
head. Let's even assume Windley drew his gun first.
The shooting would be a "good" one. But even in the
best scenario, the cops were living dangerously.
"Cops can't just show up and start a shootout,"
Johnson said. "How did they even know they had the
right guy?"
What to believe? Alleged witnesses and politicians
offer stories to fit their agendas. The mayor says we
should wait for the cops to sift through the evidence.
As his reelection centers on the crime issue, we can
probably not trust him to tell us the whole truth. That
is why he has silenced the cops. But after eyewitness
accounts were changed in the Vincent Guidice case,
"a nest of perjury" in the Francis Livoti matter, and
finally, this questionable firefight, the NYPD is in free
fall.
We want off-duty cops to make arrests. But there is
no acceptable police work in this case. Say what you
want about Officer Peter Del Debbio and his friendly
fire case, but he thought he was trying to save lives.
Off-duty cops can only take action when there is
grave danger to the public. They cannot practice
vigilante justice.
Brian Jones, they say, was a good cop. But when he
left his cousin's apartment to show off his toughness,
he damaged the credibility of the entire Police
Department.
Like Livoti's acquittal, this is a mistake that
endangers every cop. Oddly, these should be the
best of times for the NYPD. The halving of the city's
murder rate is numbing. Maybe New York City isn't
over.
But cops who choke young men to death for playing
touch football and who engage in illegal gunfights
with their neighbors are going to be the death of the
NYPD.
Original Story Date: 10/18/96
None
By JOHN MARZULLI Daily News Staff Writer
An off-duty police officer was charged with
felony assault yesterday after she punched out
a cop who had stopped her for a traffic violation on
Staten Island, authorities said.
Officer Isabel Nieves, 28, has been suspended from
the force without pay.
Nieves, a seven-year veteran assigned to the 63d
Precinct in Brooklyn, was pulled over about 8:30
a.m. for "failing to obey a traffic signal,' said police
spokeswoman Carmen Melendez.
Nieves identified herself as a cop to Officer Frank
Wessels but was not carrying identification. A
dispute ensued between Nieves and Wessels, and
she tried to leave the scene. When Wessels tried to
stop her, she punched him in the face.
Terry Moore
Cop in fatal crash was drunk on duty
July 15, 1997
BY JIM CASEY AND BRYAN SMITH STAFF REPORTERS
Police Sgt. Kathleen M. Witczak, who had steadily risen through the
ranks in her 10 years on the
force, died Monday after she crashed her squad car while drunk on duty,
sources said.
(SNIP)
Police were at a loss to explain the conduct of Witczak, a 10-year
veteran who was just promoted
to sergeant on March 1.
--
Terry says,
Killed in the line of duty?
The article doesn't say.
At any rate, this is what cops are talking about when they
say, 'we put our lives on the line each and every time we
pin on our badges.
Take the number of cops murdered in the line of duty and divide
it by the total number of cops. (69/423,000 in 1997)
Next, look up the number of murders in the entire US. Divide
that by the US population. The numbers will be very, very
close. Probably less than 1/10th of one percent difference.
Next, subtract the number of murder victims who are under 20 and
over 65 from the total number of US murders. Then subtract the
total number of citizens under 20 and over 65 from the total US
population.
You will find that the murder rate among the the Over-20/Under65
US citizenry is MORE than among cops - - who are over 20 and
under 65.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Terry at Lake Bastrop
*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--
:-:Cops have a better chance of winning the
:-:Texas Lottery Jackpot than they do of being
:-:shot/stabbed/clubbed to death by a bad-guy/bad-gal
*--*--*--*--*--*-|-*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*-|-*--*--*--
:-: Visit Terry's web page at:
:-:http://www.io.com/~jvaughn/tmoore1.htm
*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--
Copyright (c) 1998 by Terry Moore
None
There was a foreboding scene from the Livoti
case. The drama tells us a lot about where the
Bronx is headed.
At the moment of the verdict,
helmeted cops stood around parked
television trucks on the Grand
Concourse, watching live feeds from
the courtroom. When they heard,
many cops clapped and cheered.
Cops at Yankee Stadium did the same thing. They
are a tribe, so perhaps their jingoism is forgivable.
But the cops who applauded the acquittal of Francis
Livoti in uniform cheered their own defeat. Most
good cops — the ones Anthony Baez' father said he
still believes in — predict a dire future: A win for
Livoti was a loss for the NYPD.
"People are going to hate us again," said a Bronx cop
who has made as many arrests as Livoti without
having any civilian complaints lodged against him.
"Everyone is going to look at us as killer cops.
Criminals who don't need any excuse to shoot a cop
in the Bronx now have an excuse — Livoti."
Most cops believed Livoti would be convicted. He is
every bit the embarrassment that Michael Dowd
was, and not everyone in his precinct, the 46th,
would even care if he were jailed. Eight months
before Baez' killing, someone added Livoti's name to
a list of cops suspended for corruption. By then,
Livoti had 14 Civilian Complaint Review Board
complaints against him. This is not graffiti on the
Grand Concourse. This is what Livoti's tribe thought
of him.
After the hothead saw his name, Livoti shoved his
lieutenant. Later, he bragged that he had called Louis
Anemone, then the chief of patrol, for help. Instead
of being suspended, Livoti was given a command
discipline.
"Listen," Bronx Supreme Court Justice Gerald
Sheindlin explained to Daily News reporter Jorge
Fitz-Gibbon after his verdict, "if I was going to give a
cop a break, it wouldn't be Livoti."
The only consistent story in the trial is the medical
evidence. Every doctor saw neck bruises and
petechiae, the telltale signs of strangulation, and the
blood gases that show Baez had been suffocated.
Only the dead man's father saw the choke hold.
None of the cops with Livoti admitted seeing it
because choke holds are illegal.
This is a staggering detail. The cops were the only
witnesses whose testimony was inconsistent with the
medical evidence. But the judge chose to believe
them:
"Unless they were all in this grand conspiracy so that
even all the details coincided with one another —
and they are the greatest actors I have seen in my
whole life — then their testimony has to be the truth
in major respects. I don't accept everything they
said, because I had a feeling some things were being
left out."
None of the cops saw the choke hold, but they all
saw Baez alive afterward. Their selective vision
forced the judge to free Livoti. Now, if this was
Officer Friendly, who got in trouble one time, in a
tough spot, perhaps the judge could be allowed to
stumble his way to justice. But Livoti, a recidivist,
created this whole situation, the judge said. And that
is why it bothered Sheindlin to free a non-innocent
cop on the Bronx and the NYPD. We have been
arguing since the huge corruption scandal in
Brooklyn's 77th Precinct 10 years ago this fall that
cops who brutalize civilians and steal kill other cops.
The cheering for Livoti should have stopped long
ago. Anemone, now chief of the department, creates
dangerous cops like Livoti. On Feb. 1, 1995 — two
months after Baez' choking death — Anemone
spoke of Livoti at a public hearing of the Bronx
Borough Service Cabinet.
"This is an officer that has been very active in solving
community problems, doing the kind of work that the
citizenry of the city and certainly this country are
looking for," he said.
Really?
Attacking quality-of-life crimes is great, especially if
you survive them. The mayor has brayed himself
voiceless in the Bronx. With each passing day, he
becomes less a mayor of New York and more the
mayor of the NYPD. Soon he will be left with what
he started with: Staten Island.
He sought to diminish this tragedy by saying he feels
great sympathy for a wounded Bronx family. But this
verdict affects the entire city.
Unfortunately, following this verdict, the hatred will
boil and fester. As the cops cheered, the citizens
jeered.
It is odd, but both sides will share a common
tradition. At funerals, applause is frowned upon.
Original Story Date: 10/09/96
None
Shoot tied to fight with drug dealer
By CORKY SIEMASZKO
Daily News Staff Writer
Investigators suspect friendly fire killed an
off-duty housing police officer in Brooklyn on
Sunday night.
Officials said confirmation that a fellow cop's gunfire
was responsible for Brian Jones' death could not be
made until bullet fragments taken from the slain
officer's skull were analyzed.
One law enforcement official said it was likely that
Jones, 27, was killed by friendly fire. A second
official said, "Based on the investigation, we feel that
way."
Jones, a six-year veteran of the housing police, was
off-duty when he was shot while allegedly helping a
cop pal settle a score with a convicted drug dealer,
high-ranking officials said yesterday.
The pal, off-duty Officer Mark Thomas, 25, and a
third cop, Michael Murphy, 29, were suspended
yesterday. Murphy was suspended for failing to tell
detectives interviewing potential witnesses that he is a
cop.
The bloody incident in the crime-ridden East New
York section of Brooklyn involved a face-off with
Antoine Windley, a drug dealer out of jail on a
work-release program.
Windley, 25, was charged yesterday with attempted
murder and weapons possession.
He also was charged with robbery and assault
stemming from an incident in the subway Saturday
that led to the shooting.
That night, Windley allegedly fought and robbed
Thomas' cousin Damien Thomas, 23, in a nearby
subway station.
Damien Thomas told police he had accidentally
bumped into Windley in the Van Siclen Ave. station.
That angered Windley, who missed a No. 3 train he
was trying to catch into Manhattan for a night out,
sources said.
Damien Thomas did not report the incident. But
Sunday night, he was watching the Yankees game in
his apartment with Jones and Thomas when he
looked out the window and spotted Windley at
Miller and Hegeman Aves.
Jones' girlfriend, Barbara Brown, 29, said she was at
her mother's home when Jones called her at 9:30
p.m. Sunday and told her, "I have to take care of
something."
What happened next remains in dispute.
Damien Thomas told cops that his cousin and Jones
went out to talk to Windley. They returned minutes
later and asked him if he was sure Windley was the
man who'd robbed him Saturday.
He said he was, and the officers went back out to
talk with Windley again.
Moments later, shots rang out.
The investigation showed that Windley fired a .357
magnum once during the confrontation, police said.
Jones, who was armed with a 9-mm. pistol, and
Mark Thomas, who was packing a .38-caliber
revolver, fired 20 shots between them.
Windley was shot in the lower leg and taken to
Kings County Hospital.
Mark Thomas has said Windley fired first, law
enforcement sources said. That was corroborated by
at least one other witness yesterday.
Guerline Mazile, 19, who followed the escalating
argument from the bedroom window of her Miller St.
apartment, said she heard Windley tell Jones, " 'I'm
not going to fight you in front of the store, let's go in
the street.' "
Windley then walked "into the street and his back
was turned towards" Jones, she said. Then Windley
"pulled out his gun and said, 'I'm not going to waste
my time fighting,' " and fired.
Another witness, Efraim Marquez, 35, said Jones
was being belligerent with Windley and didn't identify
himself as a cop.
"Nobody knew they were cops until after the
shooting," said Marquez. "The guy who got shot, got
real loud. He was yelling, 'You want to do this,' a
bravado thing."
Marquez said he heard shots and ducked behind a
brick wall. When he looked up again, Mark Thomas
was kneeling over Jones and started screaming,
"He's a cop! He's a cop! Get an ambulance!"
According to a 1987 NYPD Legal Bureau bulletin
outlining the guidelines for off-duty action, an officer
has the authority to take action when there is an
immediate need for the prevention of a crime or the
apprehension of a suspect, the offense is a felony or
misdemeanor and the officer is armed.
Outside New York City, the guidelines are stricter:
The offense must be a felony "involving immediate
danger to human life."
Original Story Date: 10/15/96
None
The mother of a woman who was killed by a
police officer during a drunken brawl in a
Washington Heights restaurant has sued the former
cop, the restaurant and the city for $120 million.
The former officer, Frank Speringo, 29, was
sentenced Nov. 1 to 12 years in prison on his
second-degree manslaughter conviction for fatally
shooting Maria Rivas, 26, on Sept. 17, 1995, in Las
Tres Marias restaurant.
Rivas' mother, Nilpida Perez, 45, of Yonkers,
charged in papers filed Wednesday in Manhattan
State Supreme Court that her daughter was a
bystander when Speringo shot her without
provocation or just cause.
Speringo's lawyer Bruce Smirti said at trial that
Rivas' death was the fault of the man who tried to
wrestle the off-duty officer's gun from him.
Assistant Corporation Counsel Lorna Goodman
said, "We would have serious doubt about any
liability on the part of the city, and we would
seriously question a lawsuit where taxpayers have to
pay for the actions of someone in a barroom brawl."
Original Story Date: 12/13/96
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By JOHN MARZULLI
Daily News Staff Writer
The police commander accused of fudging
crime statistics at a South Bronx precinct has
retired with his captain's rank and pension intact, the
Daily News has learned. Capt. Louis Vega, a
30-year veteran, retired during talks between his
lawyers and Police Department prosecutors over a
plea deal, officials said yesterday.
Sources said the department was seeking a guilty
plea from Vega that would have resulted in his
demotion to the rank of lieutenant and the loss of 20
days' pay.
But Vega, who would have agreed to the
suspension, balked at giving up his rank, police
sources said.
Vega, a probationary captain, was charged with
"misclassifying" 29 crime reports between July and
September 1996 after auditors found that complaints
originally filed as felonies were downgraded to
misdemeanors.
If found guilty at a department hearing, Vega could
have faced dismissal. He filed for retirement Nov. 9.
Police Commissioner Howard Safir said in a
statement, "Captain Vega's retirement closes an
unfortunate chapter for the NYPD, but it should send
a clear message that we will not tolerate deception."
Original Story Date: 01/03/97
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By MAUREEN FAN and MIGUEL GARCILAZO Daily
News Staff Writers
Let drug buyers beware - that dope dealer
could be a cop. Seventy-two people were
arrested during a four-day "reverse sting" operation
in Washington Square Park, where the people
peddling marijuana were actually undercover
officers.
The Washington Square operation, which began last
Friday and ended Monday, was the first time the
police used a reverse drug sting to target prospective
drug clients, authorities said.
"It sends a very clear message that we're going to
clean out the parks," said Police Commissioner
Howard Safir. "If you come to the parks to buy
drugs, especially Washington Square Park, the
probability is you'll be buying drugs from a police
officer and you'll get arrested."
The Drug Free Parks initiative - a new plan to halt
the spread of drugs in city parks and playgrounds -
will include extra police patrols and sting operations.
Safir said the Washington Square sting was so
successful that police officials announced the
expansion to include six more parks outside
Manhattan. An infamous outdoor pot supermarket,
Washington Square was recently targeted for a
major, high-publicity crackdown.
Of the 72 arrested, more than half live outside
Manhattan and come from all walks of life, including
a college professor, students and a freelance
photographer. Their identities were not available.
Safir added that the department had a legal opinion
from the state attorney general saying the operation
stood on solid legal grounds.
"We sell [customers] real marijuana but we take
precautions to make sure none of the marijuana gets
out of our sight or ingested," he said. "It's only
entrapment if you cause somebody to do something
that they did not intend to do before."
The new anti-drug program's success was
announced at Maria Hernandez Park in Brooklyn,
which was dedicated to a Brooklyn activist who was
shot and killed in 1989 by drug dealers as she tried
to rid her neighborhood of the scourge of drugs.
The city parks targeted for the plan include Lincoln
Terrace Park and Foster Park in Brooklyn; Poe
Park in the Bronx; Markham Playground in Staten
Island, and Linden Park and Rufus King Park in
Queens.
Original Story Date: 102997
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By JOHN MARZULLI
Daily News Staff Writer
A top police commander under investigation for
alleged shady ties to a wealthy gun dealer has
retired with his pension intact after he successfully hid
from probers seeking to serve him with charges
before time ran out.
"He beat us," one disgusted police official told the
Daily News last night.
Deputy Inspector Charles Luisi, a 35-year veteran,
officially left the force at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday —
as Internal Affairs detectives futilely raced the clock
to find him.
Luisi, 58, will now collect a taxable pension of
roughly half his $85,251 salary, and he is also eligible
for a tax-free disability pension previously approved
by a medical panel.
At this point, even if prosecutors bring a case against
Luisi and he is convicted, his pensions are
unaffected. But it was not believed last night that the
district attorney's office intended to pursue matters.
Luisi, the former commander of Manhattan South
detectives and the elite bomb squad, came under a
cloud in October after he took the Fifth Amendment
seven times when questioned in Supreme Court
about thousands of dollars in trips and dinners he
was alleged to have accepted from millionaire gun
dealer Michael Zerin.
A woman suing Zerin for bigamy had charged that
Zerin had used the police connections of his
long-time friend Luisi to have her investigated.
In early November, Luisi put in for retirement -
and, while prosecutors probed the Zerin matter,
NYPD investigators sought to make a departmental
case against him in an unrelated matter involving
Luisi's alleged unauthorized ownership of an
automatic weapon.
They had 30 days to make that case before his
retirement kicked in. They failed.
"We attempted to serve him with charges, but we
were unable to locate him," said Deputy Inspector
Michael Collins, a police spokesman.
"He was very much aware that he was under
surveillance," said one investigator.
Luisi's attorney, Richard Dienst, had no comment last
night.
Original Story Date: 12/07/96
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Union Bigs Indicted
By KEVIN FLYNN, WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
and GREG B. SMITH
Daily News Staff Writers
Federal prosecutors yesterday charged former
transit police union officials with racketeering
and said they are probing signs of similar corruption
in the city's main police union.
The now-defunct transit police union's former
president, its two top lawyers and a key consultant
were charged with looting union funds in kickback
and fraud schemes, acting more like a crime family
than a police union.
Prosecutors charge the four feasted on funds
collected to benefit the 4,300-member union's rank
and file, pocketing $450,000 in kickbacks and
doling out $2 million in Transit Patrolmen's
Benevolent Association business to a prominent law
firm.
With the 13-count indictment, 11 now have been
charged and six have secretly pleaded guilty and
started cooperating with federal investigators probing
the former union. Law enforcement sources said the
cooperators include three former union officials
providing evidence of other scams.
"These charges and guilty pleas paint a sordid picture
of greed and betrayal of trust," said Manhattan U.S.
Attorney Mary Jo White. "Police officers risk their
lives for the benefit of the public every day. That it
was their own elected officials, fellow officers and
lawyers that betrayed them . . . makes these crimes
particularly galling."
Hit with racketeering, bribery and conspiracy
charges were former union President Ron Reale and
James Lysaght and Peter Kramer, partners in the
union law firm of Lysaght, Lysaght & Kramer. Also
charged was union insurance consultant Richard
Hartman, a disgraced former lawyer for the city's
main police union. Jack Jordan, former president of
the now-defunct city housing police union, was
charged with perjury in a separate indictment.
Defense lawyers said the five defendants had done
nothing wrong.
All but Reale have had close relations with the
28,000-member Patrolmen's Benevolent
Association, the main police union that's now the
focus of the continuing probe. "Some of these
tentacles go into the existing PBA," one investigator
said.
The indictment charges that Reale got dozens of
ill-fated 1993 bid for city public advocate. The
contributions helped him qualify for matching public
campaign funds, which Reale allegedly used along
with union funds to reimburse the givers.
An audit by the city Campaign Finance Board found
that more than $50,000 in Reale contributions came
in money orders, ostensibly from dozens of different
people. But many of the money orders came from
the same bank account and bore seemingly identical
handwriting.
The indictment also charged that Reale, former union
Vice President Thomas Zichettello and former union
Treasurer Raymond Montoro pocketed $450,000 in
cash kickbacks from Lysaght, Kramer and Hartman.
In exchange, the union awarded the law firm $2
million in fees to represent rank-and-file members in
everything from house closings to divorce
proceedings. Lysaght and Kramer said they were
"absolutely not guilty."
Original Story Date: 01/23/97
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By JORGE FITZ-GIBBON and JOHN MARZULLI
Daily News Staff Writers
The emotion-charged case of a Bronx cop
acquitted of choking a man to death will be
replayed starting Tuesday in a Police Headquarters
trial room.
Officer Francis Livoti will be fighting to save his job,
while the family of the dead man, Anthony Baez,
says it hopes to find a measure of justice.
Three months ago, Livoti was found not guilty of
criminally negligent homicide in a nonjury trial. The
verdict by Supreme Court Justice Gerald Sheindlin
triggered demonstrations outside the Bronx
courthouse and the 46th Precinct stationhouse,
where Livoti worked.
Legal experts said the administrative trial, which is
open to the public, differs in several key ways from
the criminal case.
"The department has a lot less to prove this time than
in the criminal case," said a law enforcement official,
speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Livoti (left) is charged with using an illegal choke
hold on Baez that contributed to his death. The
department does not have to prove the choke hold
killed Baez. The Police Department banned the use
of choke holds to restrain suspects in 1993.
The burden of proof in an administrative hearing is
51% of the evidence, and hearsay testimony is
allowed. That is less than the
beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard required in
criminal trials.
Police lawyers will not call a sergeant and two cops
who testified they did not see Livoti choke Baez. In
his decision, Sheindlin cited doubt raised by their
testimony.
And in bitter irony, the testimony of Baez' relatives
describing the choke hold may thwart the family's
$48 million wrongful death lawsuit. City lawyers will
argue the Police Department is not responsible for
Livoti's illegal actions.
"The city wants to take the position that because
Livoti violated a rule, they don't have to pay," said
lawyer Susan Karten, who is representing Baez'
widow, Maribel, in the lawsuit. "I think that's
offensive."
For Maribel Baez, a guilty verdict in the
administrative trial, which could cost Livoti his job,
has little meaning.
"It's not going to bring my loss back," she said. "I
want [Livoti] put away. He shouldn't be able to
spend time with his family. To me, justice will be to
lock him up for 15, 20 years."
Livoti is being investigated for federal civil rights
violations. He faces another criminal trial in the Bronx
on assault charges for allegedly slapping and choking
a teen in 1993.
The NYPD and the Bronx district attorney are
reviewing transcripts to determine if other cops who
testified at Livoti's trial committed perjury.
Livoti's lawyer, Stuart London, did not return calls
for comment.
The department trial, expected to last at least two
weeks, will be held before Rae Koshetz, the deputy
police commissioner of trials. Koshetz' finding will be
approved or rejected by Police Commissioner
Howard Safir.
Police prosecutors Allen Fitzer and Sgt. David
Suarez will try to show how Baez, 29, a college
student and security guard, died after a struggle with
Livoti and other cops that began after a tossed
football hit the cop's parked radio car outside the
victim's home in December 1994.
Livoti, a 15-year-veteran and union delegate at the
46th Precinct, was under special supervision by a
patrol sergeant at the time of the fatal confrontation.
He had received 11 civilian complaints alleging
excessive force or verbal abuse, but only one was
substantiated. Known as an aggressive cop, Livoti
once shoved a precinct lieutenant during an argument
but later apologized and was not disciplined.
Sheindlin questioned Livoti's fitness for the job and
said he had no doubt the cop had used a choke hold.
However, Sheindlin believed Baez still was alive after
the hold was released and that other factors — the
victim's acute asthma and compression of his chest
when cops subdued him — also played a part in his
death.
Testimony from Dr. Charles Hirsch, the city's chief
medical examiner, that compression of the victim's
neck contributed to his death will be key to proving
the main charge.
Testimony during the criminal trial by a sergeant and
three cops who said they saw Baez walking after he
was subdued was disputed by another officer, who
said when she arrived on the scene there was no
struggle and the victim was unconscious on the
sidewalk.
Police officials will assign extra cops for security
during the trial and have set aside a dozen seats for
the Baez family and supporters in the fourth-floor
courtroom.
Original Story Date: 01/05/97
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Smarts Most for DA
By JORGE FITZ-GIBBON
Daily News Staff Writer
Two years ago, a wave of corruption charges
rocked a Bronx stationhouse as authorities
alleged a rogue cell of cops had been shaking down
drug dealers.
On Thursday, the scandal at the 48th Precinct could
draw to a quiet close as two cops, both of whom
turned informants, appear in Bronx Supreme
Court for possible plea bargains.
Ten other cops have been acquitted by a judge at
nonjury trials; the misdemeanor conviction of another
was overturned.
Despite 15 indictments, only two cops from the
Cross Bronx Expressway stationhouse have been
convicted and sentenced to jail time.
The two informants, Richard Rivera, 33, of Orange
County, and James Vazquez, 33, of the Bronx, face
burglary, robbery and misconduct charges.
Joe Carrozza, Rivera's lawyer, said his client was hit
with so many charges because he was honest with
prosecutors about the corruption at the precinct.
Vazquez' lawyer, Joseph Garafola, declined
comment.
Lawyers for the other cops are demanding
retribution.
"Rivera and Vazquez sold their souls for 30 pieces of
silver," said Marvin Raskin, the lawyer for John
Lowe, who was acquitted in one case and had his
misdemeanor conviction in another overturned.
"The unfortunate circumstances that brought us to
this point is the fact that the district attorney made his
bed with these two rats," Raskin said.
"The more they lied and got other cops in trouble,
the more they gained," said attorney Stuart London,
who won acquittal for Michael Kalanz despite
Rivera's testimony.
Prosecutors said the extent of the cooperation they
got from Rivera and Vazquez, not the result, will
decide the plea offers, which may be delayed.
"I do not view them as heroes, don't misunderstand
me. They're bad cops," said Barry Kluger, chief
assistant to Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson.
"I asked something very simple. I asked them to
cooperate. I asked them to be truthful. You can't
play Monday morning quarterback."
The investigation began in 1993 when Officer
Timothy Zaccardo was nabbed in Rockland County
on drug charges and began talking to NYPD internal
affairs.
On Aug. 1, 1993, he lured Vazquez and Rivera into
a suspected drug house on E. 182d St., where
investigators allegedly caught them on video tape
pocketing money they found.
Confronted with the tape, Vazquez, and later Rivera,
agreed to wear hidden microphones on duty,
producing 10 tapes that were used as evidence.
One cop, later acquitted of beating a prisoner in a
squad car, bragged on tape that the sergeant driving
the car "did the right thing and took the long way
back to the precinct."
Another cop, also acquitted, joked to Rivera that he
"pummeled" a prisoner so hard with his flashlight that
he broke another officer's finger.
Rivera testified 17 times to grand juries, at Bronx
Supreme Court trials and at department hearings,
while Vazquez testified eight times.
The result: Officer Dwayne Townsend was
sentenced to one year in jail for taking cash from two
suspected drug dealers and Officer Derrick Jackson
received eight weekends in jail for stealing a gun
from a Bronx apartment in 1993.
"Obviously we're disappointed," Kluger said. "But
the risk that they put themselves in by wearing a
body wire and going into that precinct, that's a factor
that has to be taken into consideration."
Tom Leahy, head of the district attorney's rackets
bureau, also said nine cops, including two who
weren't indicted, either resigned or were fired, while
the remaining cops in the probe have department
hearings pending.
"At last count nine police officers have violated their
oath of office and they no longer carry a shield and a
gun in Bronx County," Kluger said. "I still view the
investigation as a success."
Original Story Date: 03/02/97
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Judgement — if not justice — finally has caught
up with rogue cop Francis X. Livoti. A Police
Department court has found him guilty of using an
illegal choke hold that contributed to the death of
Anthony Baez and recommended that he be fired.
Police Commissioner Howard Safir must do just that
— for the sake of the department and the city.
And Safir must act fast. For the clock is ticking. If
Livoti isn't booted before Feb. 26, he will walk away
with his pension after 15 years of (dis)service.
That would be the absolute wrong conclusion to the
tragedy of errors that kept Livoti on the force. He
should never have been a cop. Livoti got away with
murder — he was acquitted of criminal charges. That
must be the last time he beats a rap.
Police brass knew Livoti was a thug. He racked up
11 civilian complaints and even threatened to shoot a
judge. He was so notorious, in fact, that he couldn't
go out on patrol without special supervision. That's a
polite way to say Livoti needed a baby-sitter
because he was a cop who too often crossed the
line.
During his trial on charges of criminally negligent
homicide, Livoti's lawyers insisted asthma killed
Baez, not the choke hold. Judge Gerald Scheindlin
cited a "nest of perjury" in the case, but he acquitted
Livoti anyway.
Thanks to that unfortunate verdict, and the apparent
lies that supported it, the impression grew that a
police officer on trial has little to fear. No matter how
severe his crime, fellow cops will support him.
Fortunately, for both the NYPD and the people of
New York, the department's Deputy Commissioner
for Trials Rae Koshetz untied that disgraceful bond.
She listened to the testimony and found Livoti guilty
of using a choke hold so lethal its use is outlawed by
the NYPD. She insisted that Livoti be fired and that
he lose his pension. No coverup there. No blue wall
of silence.
Now it's up to Safir. The sooner Livoti hits the bricks
the sooner every cop and every citizen will know that
there is no room on the force for brutal, venal or
stupid cops. But Safir must not stop there. Cops like
Livoti must be found and weeded out. It must not
take another death to shake the rotten apples from
the NYPD's tree.
"Police officer" is a title that never should appear
before the name of someone who dishonors the
badge. It is an honor that belongs solely to the
overwhelming majority of cops who do their job —
and do it bravely and with distinction.
2-12-97
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Charged with whipping his son
By BLANCA M. QUINTANILLA and JOHN MARZULLI
Daily News Staff Writers
An off-duty Queens cop was charged yesterday
with whipping his 11-year-old son with a
leather belt because the youngster had clogged the
toilet with tissue, authorities said. The boy's mother
sought help at the 107th Precinct Thursday after her
husband, Officer Abdullah Shamsid-Deen, allegedly
refused to let her take her son to the doctor, and a
911 operator discouraged her from reporting the
incident.
A police spokesman said the 911 operator's alleged
action will be investigated.
Shamsid-Deen, a 10-year veteran assigned to the
103d Precinct in Jamaica, was charged with assault
and endangering the welfare of a minor. He also has
been suspended without pay.
Shamsid-Deen's wife, Rasia, said she found the boy
limping when she returned home from work about
6:45 p.m. Thursday. Police said he told her he had
been whipped about 15 times across his bare legs by
Shamsid-Deen after stopping up the toilet.
The boy reportedly had numerous cuts and bruises
on his legs. Rasia Shamsid-Deen called 911 and said
she was told her son might be taken away if the
beating was reported.
When she tried to leave with the boy, Shamsid-Deen
blocked the door and told the son to wash his legs,
cops said.
She left the apartment on her own and was escorted
back by cops who arrested Shamsid-Deen, also
serving him with an order of protection his wife had
obtained two weeks ago forbidding him from
harassing her. The couple share the same apartment.
Original Story Date: 03/08/97
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Correction officer's nightmare
After finishing her shift at the James A. Thomas
Center on Rikers Island at 12:45 p.m. Feb.
28, Correction Officer Migdalia Miranda headed
home to the north Bronx.
It was a Friday, and Miranda was
looking forward to spending a
peaceful afternoon shopping with her
husband, James, and their
8-month-old daughter, Krystal. The
10-year veteran of the brutal nether
world of city jails never imagined the terror that
awaited her or its source.
The couple drove to Yonkers, had lunch at the
Texas Grill and shopped for toys for the baby at
several stores along Central Ave. They headed back
to the Bronx about 6 p.m.
They planned to leave Krystal at Miranda's sister's
apartment, around the corner from their place in the
Mosholu area of the Bronx. On Van Cortlandt Park
South near Hillman Ave., a block away, two cops
from the 50th Precinct, Anthony Vespa and Sammy
Gawan, pulled them over.
Vespa and Gawan were randomly stopping cars,
something that has become so common of late it's
called "doing routine checks of motorists." Miranda's
husband was driving, while she held the baby in the
passenger seat.
Miranda flashed her correction officer's badge,
expecting to be waved on. Instead, she later told
Internal Affairs Bureau investigators, Gawan barked,
"You're nothing but a jail guard, pull over to the
side."
The cops demanded James Miranda's license,
registration and insurance.
"We were in our Cadillac Seville, which we usually
keep garaged, and didn't have the car's current
insurance [card] on us," Migdalia Miranda said. "I
handed the baby to my husband, got out of the car
and told one of the cops that we lived only a block
away, that I could run home and get the insurance
card if he wanted."
She said Gawan screamed, "Get the f--k inside the
car. I didn't tell you to get out."
Shocked at Gawan's hostility, Miranda responded:
"Can you call the sergeant, and can I have your
name?"
"That only got him more agitated," she said. "He spun
me around, handcuffed me and banged my head into
the car twice."
Her husband was still in the driver's seat.
"I felt totally helpless," said James Miranda, who runs
an exterminating company. "My baby was in my
arms, and there was nothing I could do."
Luz Machuca and Angel Rosario, who witnessed the
incident, have been interviewed by IAB investigators.
"It was unbelievable what they did to her," said
Rosario, a well-known community leader and
founder of the Bronx Puerto Rican Day Parade.
Gawan and Vespa threw Migdalia Miranda into their
patrol car and drove off, but, in the most amazing
part of this story: They didn't drive straight to the
precinct stationhouse.
Miranda said they took her on a terror ride.
"They drove to a poorly lit area on Bailey Ave. and
pulled over, then they turned off the car radio," she
said. "Gawan, who was sitting in the backseat, began
mashing his hand into my face.
"He kept saying, 'Who the hell do you think you are?
You're nothing but a jail guard. Do you know what I
go through every day?' I really started to panic. I
thought they were going to kill me."
She said she begged them to take her to the
stationhouse. After what seemed to her like an hour
but was probably only 15 minutes, they drove to the
stationhouse but did not take her inside. Instead, they
parked a half-block away.
Moments later her husband and sister arrived at the
stationhouse. He said the two cops intercepted them
before they could go inside. Migdalia Miranda was
still handcuffed in the patrol car.
"They tried to pacify me," James Miranda said. "One
cop said they weren't going to arrest my wife
because they didn't want her to lose her job. They
just didn't want me to go inside so nobody would
find out what they did."
They released Migdalia Miranda and told the couple
to go home. She was not charged with a crime or
issued a ticket.
Miranda immediately informed her superiors in the
Correction Department and called Internal Affairs.
On March 4, officials at Police Headquarters
announced that Vespa, a six-year veteran, and
Gawan, a 15-year veteran, surrendered their badges
and guns and were placed on modified assignment,
"for the good of the department."
Police, including those at the 50th Precinct, refused
to comment.
"I was a female with two male cops, I had no
weapon, I never resisted, what threat did I pose to
them?" Miranda said. "I know my rights. I expect this
kind of behavior from inmates but not from cops."
Police Commissioner Howard Safir has been waging
his campaign for Courtesy, Professionalism and
Respect by New York's Finest for months now.
There are ads in the subways, and soon the slogan
will be displayed on every police car.
But when a veteran correction officer has to fear for
her safety at the hands of some cops on the street,
you have to wonder about the ordinary citizen.
Original Story Date: 3-11-97
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'Nice Guy' finished at last?
In his 15 years with the New York Police
Department, Officer Sammy Gawad has been
accused of abuse 20 times. That's nearly double the
11 complaints racked up by Francis
Livoti, the notorious hothead who was
acquitted last year in the choking death
of Anthony Baez but later fired for
using an illegal choke hold.
Gawad has been placed on modified duty for
allegedly assaulting a correction officer and taking
her on a terror ride after a routine car stop last
month.
Gawad, whose latest escapade is being investigated
by the Bronx district attorney's office, is a Livoti
waiting to happen, according to some of his victims.
The 20 incidents include 14 allegations of using
unnecessary force and other allegations ranging from
discourtesy to using foul language to abuse of
authority.
Several female motorists have complained that
Gawad wrote bogus tickets and harassed or
threatened them after stopping them.
Unlike Livoti, who patrolled the crime-ridden 46th
Precinct in the Tremont area, Gawad has spent most
of his career at the Country Club, the nickname cops
use for the 50th Precinct in sedate, tree-lined
Riverdale.
In a 1987 incident, the only one the department
substantiated, Gawad was arrested in Ossining,
N.Y., for threatening to kill the wife of a local cop
after getting into a dispute over a parking spot. He
received a 15-day suspension.
"That man is a psychopath. I can't believe he's still on
the police force," said the woman, who asked not to
be identified.
She and several other women who claim they were
victims of Gawad, contacted the Daily News after
reading about the harrowing ordeal of veteran
Correction Officer Migdalia Miranda.
She and her 8-month-old daughter were in a car
driven by her husband, James, on Feb. 28 when
Gawad and his partner, Anthony Vespa, stopped
them during a random check of motorists on Van
Cortlandt Park South.
The Mirandas had left their auto insurance card at
home. Migdalia showed the cops her correction
badge and offered to walk a half block home to get
the card.
According to the couple, Gawad yelled, "Get the f--
back in the car." When she objected to his language,
he handcuffed her, banged her head twice against her
car and threw her in his cruiser, according to two
bystanders who gave statements to police internal
affairs investigators.
The cops then drove her to a secluded spot near the
Major Deegan Expressway, she said, where Gawad
repeatedly mashed his hand in her face and yelled:
"Who the hell do you think you are? You're nothing
but a jail guard."
After 15 minutes of this they drove to the
stationhouse on Kingsbridge Ave. They did not take
her inside or book her, but released her on the street
when her husband arrived with her sister.
"She was disorderly and loud," Gawad told me last
week. "Ninety-five per cent of what that woman said
are lies."
He said he didn't give her a summons or book her
because "deep in my heart I felt for her. I didn't want
her to lose her job. I've never had any problems. I'm
a very nice person."
Sure, a real Mr. Nice Guy, said Yolanda Alvarez,
the manager of a Sunoco station where many 50th
Precinct cops repair their cars. "He used to come
into my job and try to hit on me every night."
Alvarez says she refused to go out with him, and
then, around 8 p.m. Jan. 27, 1995, as she was
driving home, Gawad stopped her at 238th St. and
Riverdale Ave.
"He said I had run a red light. I was sure I hadn't.
My brother's a cop. I showed him my PBA card.
Gawad just threw it on the floor and wrote me a $75
ticket. I fought it, but he lied in court. I know he just
gave me a summons because I wouldn't go out with
him."
Since then, Alvarez said, Gawad has regularly pulled
her over during supposed routine car checks. "I'm
afraid now every time I see a police car."
Mr. Nice Guy said Alvarez was lying, too. "I'm a
married man," he said. "I wouldn't do that. I'm in a
summons unit in a precinct. It turns people off when I
give them tickets."
One of his tickets went to Rosemary Gynegrowski,
whom Gawad stopped in August 1992 while she
was riding her bicycle.
"He demanded to see my identification and the bill of
sale for my bike. I couldn't believe it," she said. "I'm
a 32-year-old registered nurse. Believe me, I don't
look like a bike thief. I laughed and told him this was
stupid."
Gawad slapped her with a $50 ticket for making an
illegal turn at a stop light. She said she has witnessed
Gawad being abusive to others in her neighborhood.
"He's crazy, and he picks on women and children,"
she said.
But after 20 complaints, someone at 1 Police Plaza
has decided to check out Mr. Nice Guy.
Deputy Police Commissioner Marilyn Mode said
internal affairs detectives are moving forward
"thoroughly and expeditiously" with an investigation
and are cooperating with the district attorney's office.
Police Commissioner Howard Safir has less
tolerance for abusive cops than his predecessor
William Bratton. Safir fired Livoti and initiated a
program where any cop with more than six abuse
complaints automatically gets monitored.
Up in Riverdale, some women and children are
already breathing easier.
Original Story Date: 032197
None
The important thing is the cop's mindset. In the
moment after the shooting, Anthony Pellegrini
said he shot Kevin Cedeno in the back because he
believed Cedeno had a sawed-off
shotgun. That makes it a mistake, but
not necessarily a criminal mistake.
With no credible witnesses to the
controversial police shooting — which
one politician now admits he mistakenly described as
an execution — the case will probably be decided
on the cop's story. As of yesterday, prosecutors'
only witnesses were the police officers at the April 6
shooting.
"Who is to say?" said a senior law enforcement
official with intimate knowledge of the case. "But if
the cop is going to say he thought the guy had a
shotgun, he may be cleared."
Pellegrini wants to talk to the Manhattan district
attorney's office to tell his side of things.
"I shot him in the back," Pellegrini reportedly told his
fellow officers immediately after firing one shot from
his 9-mm. Glock. "I thought he had a shotgun."
A grand jury has not heard this, sources said.
It was never really a story about a cop who shot a
knife-wielding teenager. After the shooting, Mayor
Giuliani said Cedeno had a knife and lunged at cops
who fired in self-defense.
Pellegrini never saw a knife, sources said, and says
he wouldn't have fired at Cedeno if he had. He fired
because he mistook the handle of a 22-inch machete
for a sawed-off shotgun. His fear and reaction were
understandable, investigators said. Pellegrini's
partner, Michael Garcia, had just yelled, "He's got a
gun."
It was a mistake, and there are mistakes all over the
place.
The mayor started the city off on the wrong foot
when he rushed in blindly to defend the police. That
was wrong, and it was wrong for mayoral candidate
Fernando Ferrer to have used the word "execution,"
which, in this case, means cold-blooded murder.
"I didn't mean to suggest premeditation," Ferrer told
me yesterday.
" 'Execution' is the wrong word," I said. "It goes to
motive.
"I think you're right," Ferrer said. "I wasn't saying
premeditation."
Ferrer is a reasonable man. He has admitted that he
used the wrong word. But that doesn't mean he's
wrong to question the police or the mayor.
Their credibility is wounded, perhaps mortally. But
Cedeno's unfortunate death was not a state-ordered
killing.
Al Sharpton knows this, too. Lost in all the
misinformation is the fact that the good reverend did
not say anything about the shooting until several days
after Giuliani's erroneous account. He paid for an
independent autopsy and walked through the
neighborhood, talking angry kids out of taking to the
streets. This is leadership.
"Rudy made this political," Sharpton said. "I didn't
make it political. If you want to lead, you have to go
and lead. We had kids who wanted to riot in
Washington Heights. I went up there and talked them
out of that."
A largely overlooked part of this story is an ethnic
dispute between Dominican and American black
kids before the shooting. The black youths had not
been invited to a party, thrown by some Dominican
kids, but their girlfriends, including Cedeno's sister,
were more than welcome. When the black youths
showed up, trouble erupted.
"I have said two things in this case from the first day,"
Sharpton said. "One of the challenges is to account
for the police policy. The other one is about what
happened before the shooting. . . . You have to
challenge kids to stop fighting each other."
Pellegrini must tell his story. He isn't hiding. I asked
Sharpton how he would feel if Pellegrini said he was
facing a shotgun.
"We never said we knew what happened," Sharpton
replied. "The only one who did was the mayor. And
he was wrong. So no one knows whether the cop or
the family is going to get a fair shake."
To date, prosecutors haven't found any witnesses
other than cops.
"Some eyewitness accounts have been fabricated,"
an investigator said. "We have determined that
people that claimed to have witnessed the shooting
and gave us statements were not even there."
This is somewhat reminiscent of July 1992, and
Michael O'Keefe and Kiko Garcia. For months,
alleged witnesses led the city to believe that Garcia
had been executed. But when we finally heard
O'Keefe's radio transmissions, the city realized the
cop was fighting for his life.
"People don't want to come forward because they
are afraid of being killed by witnesses or deported
by immigration," the investigator said. "In the
neighborhood, even legal aliens are reluctant to come
forward."
Ultimately, Pellegrini will come forward. There is no
reason for him not to explain his mindset. And
without a witness telling a different story, the cop will
be cleared because his mistake in judgment was not
a criminal mistake.
Original Story Date: 041897
None
By JOHN MARZULLI
Daily News Staff Writer
The acting police commissioner ignored a police
trial judge's finding that a police officer should
be fired for missing 200 hours of work and instead
allowed the cop to pay a $50,000 fine, the Daily
News has learned.
By okaying the highly unusual penalty, First Deputy
Commissioner Tosano Simonetti cleared the way for
Officer Jay Creditor, a Patrolmen's Benevolent
Association delegate, to retire on a tax-free disability
pension worth $1.4 million.
Creditor, a 10-year veteran assigned to Queens'
110th Precinct, is seeking the pension due to a back
injury he sustained in 1988 while struggling with a
suspect.
Officials said Creditor paid the fine, roughly equal to
a year's salary, by check yesterday. His pension
request is expected to be approved today, sources
said.
The officer became the target of a police
investigation last year because he was AWOL more
than 200 hours during a six-month period, never
notifying his supervisors of his whereabouts, officials
said.
Police prosecutors rushed Creditor's case to trial last
month, seeking his dismissal before the cop's pension
request came before the pension board.
At his trial, Creditor claimed the charges were
cooked up by sergeants jealous of him because his
union status gave him "more power" than his
supervisors.
Deputy Commissioner in Charge of Trials Rae
Downes Koshetz rejected Creditor's argument. She
found the cop guilty of 15 administrative charges and
recommended termination in a finding handed down
on Monday.
But even before that decision, Police Commissioner
Howard Safir ordered the cop and the department to
come up with an agreement, police spokeswoman
Marilyn Mode said.
Mode conceded it is rare for the police
commissioner to reject the trial judge's findings. She
said she did not know why Safir pushed for a deal.
"The penalty here is considerable," Mode said of the
fine. The final agreement was signed by Simonetti,
who has been running the department since Safir
underwent emergency double-bypass heart surgery
last week.
A police official close to the probe blasted the deal.
"This sends a message to other cops of a back-room
deal," the official said.
Creditor's precinct commander and a lieutenant who
was Creditor's immediate supervisor face disciplinary
action stemming from his absences. Creditor's
attorney, Stuart London, did not return a call for
comment.
Original Story Date:3-12-97
None
By FRANK LOMBARDI
Daily News Staff Writer
Democratic mayoral contender Fernando Ferrer
yesterday told a radio audience that the fatal
police shooting of Manhattan teen Kevin Cedeno
was "an execution."
The Bronx borough president, appearing on the
WLIB-AM show of former Mayor David Dinkins,
criticized city cops over the finding that Cedeno was
shot in the back.
"It runs against the grain of the American psyche to
shoot someone in the back," Ferrer said. "To shoot
someone in the back is an execution, and that's
precisely what occurred here."
The remarks further escalated an already angry
controversy over the April 6 shooting of the
16-year-old by Police Officer Anthony Pellegrini.
Cedeno, who has an arrest record and was on
probation for robbery, was carrying a 22-inch
machete when he was shot while fleeing cops.
Pellegrini has not given an explanation for the
shooting, which is under investigation by Manhattan
prosecutors and the police Internal Affairs Bureau.
Although the investigations are still in their early
stages, Ferrer stressed that police guidelines prohibit
officers from shooting fleeing suspects.
"If you shoot someone in the back, it's an execution,"
Ferrer said when asked about his broadcast
comments. "And what happened here was shooting
in the back. It wasn't shooting in the leg, it wasn't
shooting in the arm, it was shooting in the back."
Ferrer's remarks drew sharp criticism from police
and Democratic mayoral hopeful the Rev. Al
Sharpton - but for opposite reasons.
"It's irresponsible and pre-judgmental," said Marilyn
Mode, chief spokeswoman for Police Commissioner
Howard Safir.
Joseph Mancini, an official of the Patrolmen's
Benevolent Association, said: "Just because someone
was shot in the back doesn't mean he was executed.
It could have been the only way to save someone's
life. To come out and say it was an execution totally
disregards due process."
Campaign officials for Mayor Giuliani declined to
comment. But Sharpton - the Cedeno family's
spokesman - questioned Ferrer's motive for the
remarks.
"I called it an execution from the first day," said
Sharpton.
The black Baptist minister asked why Ferrer, the
city's most visible Latino official, waited so long to
speak out - and why he chose the radio show of
the city's first black mayor as his forum. "Was he
pandering to a black radio audience?" asked
Sharpton.
Ferrer responded that he, unlike Sharpton, withheld
comment until the cause of death was established by
separate autopsies conducted by the city medical
examiner's office and by experts for Cedeno's family.
The exchange added fuel to a debate that already
has become an issue in the 1997 mayoral campaign.
The four Democrats vying to challenge Giuliani,
including Manhattan Borough President Ruth
Messinger and Brooklyn City Councilman Sal
Albanese, have criticized the GOP incumbent for
initially defending the shooting as an apparent case of
self-defense.
Original Story Date: 041797
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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
None
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
None
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.
None
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
None
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
None
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
None
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
None
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
None
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
None
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
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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."
None
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
None
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
None
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
None
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
None
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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
None
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
None
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
=====
None
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
None
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
None
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
None
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
None
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
None
Accused of Abuse
AP
30-JUL-98
HOUSTON (AP) -- Three more current and former jailers have been charged
in a videotaped shakedown of Missouri inmates at the Brazoria County
jail.
Former Sheriff's Lt. Lester Arnold, 47; former deputy David Cisneros,
38; and
current jailer Robert Percival, 36, were arrested Wednesday.
The men, along with former Capital Correctional Resources Inc. officer
Wilton
Wallace, 51, are charged with aiding and abetting the assault of Toby
Hawthorne, a Brazoria County Detention Center inmate.
Hawthorne was kicked, shocked with a stun gun and bitten by a police dog
during a 30-minute incident recorded Sept. 18, 1996, during the making
of a
training tape uncovered last summer by The Facts, a daily newspaper in
Brazoria
County, south of Houston.
Arnold also is charged with shocking two other prisoners.
Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan was pleased to learn of the indictments.
``We were promised this would be taken seriously. I applaud the
authorities for
going forward with the indictments,'' Carnahan said in Jefferson City,
Mo.
CCRI vice president Jim Brewer did not a phone message left Wednesday by
The Associated Press. But Sheriff Joe King hinted that he doesn't
believe the
indictments are justified.
``You can't print in a public paper what my opinion is of those
indictments,''
King said. ``I won't publicly express what I feel.''
Cisneros, Percival and Wallace each could get 10 years in prison if
convicted.
Arnold faces 30 years. Wallace faces an additional 10 years if convicted
in a
separate, untaped attack on another inmate.
Cisneros and Percival were released on bond. Arnold's status after his
arrest
was unclear. Wallace, who was initially arrested in June, was not
rearrested
Wednesday.
The inmates were housed at the jail in Angleton, about 45 miles south of
Houston, through a contract with Groesbeck, Texas-based Capital
Correctional
Resources Inc., a private prison company.
After The Facts exposed the videotape, Missouri canceled its contract,
215
remaining inmates were returned and Wallace and other CCRI staffers were
laid
off.
About 500 have inmates filed a federal lawsuit against CCRI, alleging
their civil
rights were violated in company facilities in Brazoria, Limestone and
Gregg
counties.
None
cop admits seven bank
robberies
By Jeffrey Gold, Associated Press, 07/30/98 07:29
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) - He doesn't remember pulling on the ski
mask or the latex gloves, or brandishing his police-issue
semiautomatic .40-caliber Glock pistol at frightened bank
workers.
Still, Trenton Police Officer Christopher Kerins believes
he is
the ``camouflage bandit'' who committed seven bank
robberies.
Kerins, an undercover narcotics officer, pleaded guilty
Wednesday to the robberies, telling a federal judge that
bank
photographs and other evidence convinced him he was the
criminal.
The spree at five different banks netted nearly $50,000
from
November 1995 to April 1996.
Bank photographs described in court showed Kerins, who
joined the police force in 1985, always wore a full-face
ski
mask and latex gloves, and carried his service pistol.
Kerins
also conceded that the camouflage jacket found at his
house
matched the jacket worn during the robberies.
Defense lawyer Robert J. Fettweis thinks Kerins became
addicted to heroin to escape nightmares and hallucinations
that haunted him since 1989, when he shot to death a man
who attacked him with a butcher knife.
His lawyers considered presenting an insanity defense, but
concluded that, while Kerins suffered from post-traumatic
stress syndrome, he didn't meet the stringent legal
definition
of insanity, Fettweis said.
Kerins, 41, faces about 10 to 12 years in federal prison
without
parole when he is sentenced Oct. 26. Kerins is suspended
without pay from the Trenton force and will likely be
dismissed
after sentencing.
He also awaits sentencing in Ohio, where he pleaded guilty
in
1996 to robbery and drug charges, and could get more than
60
years in prison.
He has been in custody since his arrest in April 1996
while
attending a law enforcement conference in Cincinnati.
Authorities there said they found heroin in Kerins'
luggage after
he robbed a suburban Cincinnati bank and led police on a
six-mile chase before his tires were shot out by an
officer he
tried to run down.
:
None
ex-fiancee
Associated Press, 07/29/98 16:25
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) - A New York City detective who
allegedly stabbed his ex-fiancee 22 times, nearly severing
her
arm, is to be arraigned Thursday on attempted murder
charges.
A Westchester County grand jury indicted Michael Ferrante,
36, on charges of second-degree attempted murder,
first-degree assault and criminal possession of a weapon,
said
District Attorney Jeanine Pirro. Ferrante could be
sentenced to
up to 25 years in prison.
The victim, Carol Nanna, 30, was found in a pool of blood
on a
street in New Rochelle on May 27. She had serious stab
wounds to the face, arms and body.
Ferrante, bloodied but unhurt, was found nearby with a
folding
knife in his pocket, prosecutors say. The 15-year veteran,
who
lives in Yonkers, has been suspended by the NYPD.
The attack came a week after Ms. Nanna left Ferrante to
move
in with her parents in Rockland County. She told police
there
that Ferrante had threatened to kill her, and his gun and
badge
were taken away then.
Ms. Nanna has had extensive surgery and is trying to
regain
the use of her arm.
None
>
> July 30,
> 1998
>
> Former police officer gets prison for setting his
> girlfriend on fire. The defendant, who had been
> with the Montgomery Township force, maintained
> that it was an accident.
>
> By Laura Barnhardt
> INQUIRER CORRESPONDENT
>
> Angelo Collazo, 34, a former Montgomery Township police officer, will
> spend seven to 16 years in state prison for setting his girlfriend on fire
> last summer, a Montgomery County Court judge ruled yesterday.
>
> Long after he is released from jail, Maureen Patenaude will still have
> her scars. More than 33 percent of her
> body was burned when Collazo doused her with gasoline and set her on
> fire in a rage over their relationship.
>
> She spent 39 days in the hospital after the Aug. 10 incident -- much of it
> in a drug-induced coma, some of it on life support, all of it in pain. Even
> now, she faces from one to a dozen more surgeries to prevent
> permanent disfiguration, according to court testimony yesterday. And
> she must constantly wear a protective suit to reduce the swelling from
> the second- and third-degree burns on her back and legs.
>
> Patenaude can no longer work as a police dispatcher -- a job in
> Montgomery Township that she said she loved. At 25, her hopes of
> becoming a police officer, for now, have been dashed, leaving her with
> bandages and nightmares, she testified yesterday.
> "It never occurred to me that either of us would get
> hurt," Collazo said.
Brainiac.
> "I'm not that kind of person. I love people. That's why I became an
> officer."
.
None
BY SARAH FERGUSON
On May 30, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani sent in over 250 riot cops
and a vintage Korean War
tank to evict squatters from the city-owned tenements they had
occupied for the past 10 years.
Although police vacated only two of the five East 13th Street
squats, the eviction was a major blow
to Manhattan's Lower East Side squatter community--one of the
last vestiges of counterculture in
the city.
"We represent a lifestyle that the city has determined it doesn't
want anymore," says David Boyle,
the founder of the East 13th Street Homesteaders Coalition.
It was Boyle, a self-styled "warrior
poet," and a group of jazz musicians who took over the tenements
back in 1984 after their owner
abandoned them. They rousted the smack dealers, then cleared out
floors piled high with used
needles and debris.
"We modeled ourselves after the original homesteading movement in
the 1890s," Boyle explains.
Over the years, the squats attracted an eclectic population--from
white punks to working-class
cabbies to black playwrights to Uruguayan flamenco dancers and
Salvadoran refugees. They hosted
block parties and voter-registration drives, and planted gardens
in the neighboring rat-infested lots.
But the city government wants to turn over the buildings for a
new housing development. Last
October, the squatters launched a lawsuit, claiming title to
the buildings by "adverse possession."
But city housing officials ruled in April that three of the
squats were in imminent danger of collapse,
giving them grounds for an emergency eviction.
Tipped off over Memorial Day weekend, when the city sent workers
to measure the doors for new
roll-down gates, the squatters girded for battle. They welded
the fire escapes with bicycle frames
and barbed wire and plugged the stairwells with old refrigerators
and heavy wooden joists. At 2
AM, the front doors of 539, 541, and 545 East 13th Street
were welded shut.
The squatters knew it was only a matter of time before the
cops busted down their doors. Their
goal was to hold out long enough for their lawyers to win a
court order barring the city from
vacating the buildings. So faced with a paramilitary-style
invasion by the NYPD, the squatters
countered with the only defense they had--the power of spectacle.
"It's Waco on 13th Street," boasted one squatter, standing on a
fire escape where he'd hung an old
shower curtain painted with the word "MOVE"--an ominous
reference to the 1985 police bombing
in Philadelphia. Nearby, a pair of crackly speakers blared
Dylan's "Rainy Day Women #12 & #35"
as 200 street supporters--mostly young punks and squatters
from neighboring buildings--began
throwing up trash barricades, and even overturned an
abandoned car on the street outside the
squats. Realizing they'd have to stay awake all night, some
loaded up on tabs of acid, lending their
resistance a bizarre festive air, like a cross between
Lollapalooza and Road Warrior.
Police posted sharpshooters on neighboring rooftops, and
three helicopters circled overhead. They
cordoned off a 10-block area, then began weeding
demonstrators out.
The remaining crowd of maybe 100 let out a cheer as
"Any Time Baby," the NYPD's 50-ton
armored personnel carrier, rounded the corner of Avenue
B at 9:50 AM. The cops seemed to have
trouble maneuvering it, and nearly bashed into a parked
car before they succeeded in dragging
away the overturned vehicle blocking the street. Cops
stormed into a neighboring squat at 537 East
13th St., pepper-gassing three squatters who tried to
bolt the door.
Cops began picking off protesters lined up outside the
buildings in a human chain.Soon, the rooftops
were swarming with riot police armed with tear gas and
assault rifles. On the street, Police
Commissioner William Bratton looked on as one squatter
goose-stepped on the rooftop of 545--in
parodic defiance of the gun-toting officers sent to evict
him.
All told, 31 people were arrested. Five more were arrested
four days later on charges of felony riot
when police stormed a demonstration outside the squats
with batons and Mace. Since then, the
NYPD has upped its round-the-clock surveillance on the
block and installed motion detectors in the
vacated squats.
The city maintains that the squatters are educated artists
with the means to go elsewhere. In fact,
few of the 41 evicted squatters have incomes high enough to
qualify for the so-called low-income
units slated for the sites, which require yearly salaries
of at least $14,600. Costs for the project are
slated at $100,000 per unit. Adding the legal costs and police
overtime, they could run to over
$200,000 per unit.
"At that price, the city could have bought condos for everyone
in the West Village," charges
squatter attorney Stanley Cohen. The real issue isn't housing,
says Cohen. It's power. The East 13th
Street squats were targeted by Lower East Side Coalition Housing
Development (LESCHD), the
nonprofit slated to develop the $4 million project.
LESCHD's former director is the Lower East
Side's City Councilmember, Antonio Pagan, who vowed to
evict the squatters in his 1993
re-election campaign, which was largely financed by
real-estate interests. Both the contractor and
the architect hand-picked by LESCHD were Pagan contributors.
The squatters continue their court battle for the right
to the buildings. New York Supreme Court
Justice Elliot Wilk has been remarkably sympathetic to
their cause, terming the city's vacate orders
an "opportunistic fraud." But even if Wilk rules in the
squatters' favor, he's likely to be overturned by
the more conservative Appellate Division.
That doesn't daunt Cohen. "I plan to take this to the
US Supreme Court if I have to," he says. In
fact, by remaining in court so long, the East 13th Street
homesteaders are establishing a precedent
for legal recognition of squatters. "This case is a direct
attack on the government's control of public
property in urban areas," Cohen maintains. "If we win,
it means that homeless people across the
country need not remain on the streets as long as there
are hundreds of thousands of city buildings
that are allowed to fall into garbage heaps."
None
BY GENNIFER BIGGS TYSON
STAFF WRITER
The preliminary hearing for the Chicago police officer accused of
killing
an Elmwood Park woman in a hit-and-run accident on Harlem Avenue has
been
continued until mid-August.
Chicago police officer George Wilson, 38, appeared July 21 at Maybrook
Square Courthouse to face charges of reckless homicide, aggravated
driving under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene of a fatal
accident after being arrested in connection with the June 13 incident.
Police allege that Wilson was behind the wheel of a small pickup truck
that struck and killed 66-year-old Sofia Latuszkin as she crossed
Harlem near George Street.
Defense attorneys and prosecutors agreed to postpone the hearing
until Aug. 17 to allow Elmwood Park police time to complete their
investigation. (coverup)
“There are still evidence leads that need to be worked on,”
explained Elmwood Park Police Chief Thomas Braglia. “For example,
we still have the truck in custody because we are trying to decide
if we should impound the entire vehicle as evidence, or impound
portions of it, or release it.
“Those are the kinds of things still under consideration,
and sometimes those things take time to decide.”
Braglia said because of the nature of the investigation,
details were being checked and checked again. (coverup)
“This case is major in nature, so both our guys and
the state will take their time to make some decisions after
we are done with reports,” Braglia said. “We don’t want to
forget anything. (coverup)
“We will go over it all again and again so it is
as thorough as we can make it.
“It was my hope to have it tied up already, but sometimes
there are day-to-day things that impact the investigation.(coverup)
We don’t expect it will take much longer.” ( nothing will happen
to the pig)
During the July 21 appearance, Wilson arrived just before
his 11 a.m. court time, waiting in the hallway of the courthouse
until his case was called. Inside, Latuszkin family members waited about
30 minutes before court proceedings started.
After Assistant State’s Attorney Colin Simpson and defense
attorney James Meltreger appeared in
front of the judge, Wilson exited the front of the courthouse,
leaving the area in his attorney’s car.
Wilson has been assigned to desk duty at the Chicago District
25 headquarters, 5555 W. Grand Ave., where he was a patrol officer
at the time of the incident.
No information has been released regarding the Chicago Police
Department’s investigation into
allegations that Wilson was at a party in the District 25 parking lot
prior to the fatal accident.