Results tagged “abnerlouima”

So how many years should a police officer spend in jail for sodomizing a handcuffed suspect with a broomstick? Justin Volpe, the cop who was convicted of torturing Haitian immigrant Abner Louima in a Brooklyn precinct in 1997 and who has been behind bars in a federal prison for nearly 12 years without any chance of parole, is petitioning the Justice Department for a reduced sentence. He's currently sentenced to 30 years, but letters from family, friends, and a priest pleading for leniency have been sent with his petition. (In 2004, GQ tagged along with Volpe's father, a retired NYPD cop, during depressing visits with his son.)

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.”

The Brooklyn man who says police sodomized him with a radio antenna after he resisted arrest at a subway station is still in the hospital, and subpoenas have been issued to six witnesses who support his claims, including bystanders, friends and a roommate who took him to the hospital after the incident. Two witnesses believed to support the NYPD's sodomy denial—a token clerk and his 12-year-old son—have also been subpoenaed, the Daily News reports. Earlier this week, a special grand jury was convened to look into the explosive allegations.

Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes a special grand jury will look at the claims of a Brooklyn man who says five police officers beat and sodomized him with a police radio antennae at a subway station. Hynes said, "On the basis of preliminary conclusions of the early stages of my investigation and a review of the medical evidence concerning the allegations that Michael Mineo was brutally assaulted by four police officers I have ordered a special investigative grand jury to be empaneled."

Given the large number of people that work for the City of New York, it's inevitable that some will be charged with crimes in any given year. The New York Post, however, is highlighting some of the more noteworthy crimes committed by city workers in today's paper. They range from the relatively benign (a schoolteacher getting busted for smoking weed before heading into a show at the Beacon Theater) to the more serious (a drunk driver who hit a fireman assisting a driver, and a man who murdered his ex-fianceé.)

REV. SHARPTON TO APPRAISE RUDI GIULIANI AT TENTH ANNIVERSARY RALLY & DISCUSS THE STATE OF POLICE BRUTALITY TODAY IN LIGHT OF GIULIANI'S FRONTRUNNER STATUS ON THE REPUBLICAN TICKET BY ANALYZING WHAT THE NATION MIGHT FACE IF GIULIANI IS ELECTED PRESIDENT AND OVER THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENTOther attendees include Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, who survived being shot by police officers last fall (their friend Sean Bell did not survive) .

The family of Gregory McCullough, the tow truck driver who suffered third-degree burns over 80% of his body from the Midtown steam pipe explosion, had an emotional meeting with the man who helped him. Junior Suarez, a 27-year-old who works at an employment agency, broke down as he described McCullough's pain,"He was just screaming and screaming and couldn't stop screaming."

The Post visited with Abner Louima, one of the city's most famous symbols of police brutality, ten years after the infamous incident at Brooklyn 70th Precinct. Louima had been arrested on August 9, 1997, after a scuffle outside a Brooklyn club. He claimed he was beaten by police officers on the way to the precinct, and later at the precinct, he was further beaten and sodomized with a toilet plunger while handcuffed. Louima had a perforated colon and damaged bladder, and the plunger was also shoved into his mouth, damaging his teeth.

Something we're positive you'll be hearing more about in the next few days: Civil rights lawyer Michael Warren and his wife Evelyn were arrested after they allegedly interfered with a police arrest at Atlantic and Vanderbilt Avenues in Brooklyn. Warren, who has represented Tupac Shakur, members of the Black Panthers and Abner Louima, said, "I got hit in the jaw, upside the head and on my lip a few times, and you can can see that my pants are torn, but I'm fine. I'm great."

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on Amboy Rd. on Staten Island, a shooting on Lexington Ave. in Brooklyn, and a water rescue in the area of the George Washington Bridge, near Manhattan's 176th St.
• The Italian boyfriend of actress Anne Hathaway is being sued by a business partner for misusing $1.3 million of a joint venture fund, spending it on things like private jet trips with his girlfriend and subsidizing a lavish lifestyle.
• Former police officer Charles Schwarz completed his five-year prison term and was released from a halfway house where he finished it. While always maintaining his innocence of any involvement in the attack on Abner Louima that occurred while the man was in police custody, Schwarz agreed to a plea deal just before starting his fourth trial.
• Rudy Giuliani's getting it from both social conservatives and liberals after equivocating on questions of abortion during this week's Republican Presidential debate. Critics from both sides stressed that there is no middle ground in the debate.
• Ten current and former members of the M.T.A. Police Department are suing the agency, alleging discrimination against black and Hispanic officers.
• A ruptured 48-inch underground pipe near the Yonkers train station spewed as many as four million gallons of sewage into the Hudson River today.
• We thought stoners were immune to these types of impulses, but an LSU student was arrested after he made repeated threats of a violent attack against Senator Clinton, who is scheduled to be in Baton Rouge today. He was also found posessing marijuana and drug paraphenalia.
• The possible remains of six more WTC victims were found by recovery workers. Four potential body parts were found in material dug from beneath a service road and the potential remains of two more people were found on the roof of a Cedar St. building.

Charles Schwarz, the former NYPD officer who was convicted of lying about his role in the 1997 police torture of Abner Louima, has been released from prison to a halfway house. Schwarz had been serving a five-year prison sentence in a federal minimum security prison in Minnesota. The halfway house is in an unnamed upstate location after Schwarz requested that he not be moved to a house in Bedford-Stuyvesant because of his notoriety.

Here is part two of our semi-chronological look back at the top stories this past year (here is part one):

Yesterday, thousands of people walked down Fifth Avenue in to protest a police shooting against three unarmed men. Sean Bell was shot to death just hours before his wedding while his two friends, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, were wounded in a barrage of 50 bullets in less than a minute; undercover police claimed they saw a fourth man with a gun.

The Reverend Al Sharpton announced the "shopping for justice" protest march he's been talking about since the shooting of Sean Bell, Joseph Guzman, and Trent Benefield by the police.

"Many will be shopping for trinkets and toys. We will be shopping for justice and making a moral appeal to this city and this nation. The fact that we are going on probably the most visible street in the world tomorrow, you don't have to talk to be heard. You just got to show up."

Last week, retired NYPD detective Robert Volpe died at age 63 in Staten Island. He was not any ordinary detective: Volpe specialized in art thefts and frauds, tracking down paintings by Matisse and Raphael, Greek sculptures, and Tiffany glass, all while continuing to paint, teach and lecture about art. The NY Times had a vivid obituary of Volpe's life - it sounds just like a movie:

Mr. Volpe essentially created his detective’s job after computer analyses pinpointed art theft as a growing problem. Asked to make a survey, he came back with actual arrests instead of a report — underlining the need for a special effort.

Continue reading "City's One and Only Art Cop, Robert Volpe, Dies"

-- Did you know that the first woman to cycle around the world was a Jewish mother from Boston? Us neither.

The documentary isn't coming out for a month, but there's speculation about the upcoming Giuliani Time and what it could mean for the former mayor/possible Republican presidential candidate. Director Kevin Keating is trying to show the other, non-September 11 Giuliani - you know, the Gooliani we all remember from such events as the Abner Louima beating, the Amadou Diallo shooting, and the Sensation show debacle. The Times points out the film is being distributed by Cinema Libre, which is "known for its slate of leftish films, like 'Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism' and 'Uncovered: The War on Iraq.'" And the Daily News cuts to the chase and says for New Yorkers, it'll "offer few revelations." But it'll be a trip down memory lane!

Wow, we do not want to get on the bad side of Brooklyn Judge Reena Raggi! Just look what happened to disgraced ex-cop Charles Schwarz when he went before Raggi yesterday to ask for a 13-month leniency in his five-year prison sentence. Then again, his sentence is for perjuring himself during the Abner Louima trial, but still. Schwarz admits to lying concerning his role in getting Louima into the bathroom of Brooklyn's 70th Precinct station house on August 9, 1997 where he was viciously sexually assaulted by at least former officer Justin Volpe, who is serving a 30 year sentence for the attack. Schwarz was jailed on the perjury rap after a federal jury was unable to decide if holding the Louima down constituted participating in the attack.

- That he smokes a lot of pot - "I smoke weed morning till night, like everyone in the ghetto. I'm Jamaican. We don't use those other fancy drugs."Reverend Al Sharpton went to pay his respects to officer Stewart at Brooklyn's 70th Precinct, the very station where Abner Louima was abused. Police say that Cameron went to his girlfriend's apartment after the shooting and took a nap. The NYPD posthumously made Stewart a detective, which means a "$21,200 bump in the late officer's salary and ensures that his widow...will receive an estimated $80,000 annual pension." And NY and Philadelphia authorities are continuing to look at why Cameron was even free.