Challenges Ahead for Subway Sodomy Grand Jury

The special investigative grand jury convened in the case of the man who says police sodomized him with a walkie-talkie antenna after he resisted arrest in a Brooklyn subway station will not have an easy time deciding whether to indict the officers because of conflicting witness testimonies. And police sources have contradicted each other when speaking off the record with the Times: One source says the man, Michael Mineo, suffered internal tears just inside his rectum, while another insists the tear was "just above his rectum." Forensic tests on one officer’s equipment found no trace of hair, fibers, bodily tissue, fecal matter or blood. And sources tell the Daily News that one transit cop who came upon the three officers making the arrest approached his commanding officer to make a statement, but a union delegate discouraged him. NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly said yesterday that "the statements of the complainant and the statements of witnesses are so disparate, and charges here so serious, that I think the investigative grand jury is appropriate in this case.”