Results tagged “policebrutality”

The 24-year-old Brooklyn tattoo artist (pictured) who says three police officers beat and sodomized him in the Prospect Park subway station last October will be suing the city. Michael Mineo's lawyer tells the Post his client will seek $220 million in damages for the "physical pain, suffering and mental anguish, along with punitive damages suffered." In December, a grand jury indicted the three officers, and a criminal trial is expected to begin this fall. Mineo says the brutality took place after he ran from cops who accused him of smoking marijuana as he approached the station around noon on October 15th, 2008. After they apprehended him near the token booth, Mineo says Officer Richard Kern sodomized him with a baton. A transit cop who was in the station is expected to testify that he saw Kern put his baton on Mineo's buttocks. The damages sought in his civil lawsuit dwarf the money sought in other police brutality lawsuits—by comparison, Abner Louima, who was Mineo's predecessor in the annals of NYPD sodomy victims, sued the city for $155 million back in 2001, but got $8.6 million in a settlement.

A 71-year-old Queens grandmother say's she'll file a civil-rights lawsuit against the city after an altercation inside the 107th Precinct Wednesday night left her with a broken hip. Elizabeth Gorden (pictured) had gone there with other family members to find out why cops hadn't arrested a man who allegedly slapped her granddaughter at a bus station. What happened next is heavily disputed—police say the family became unruly and were asked to leave. And when a captain intervened, they say Gorden took a swing at him, missed and fell to the floor, breaking her hip. She had to have surgery this week.

       

Two New School students and one academically unaffiliated protester were arrested last night for blocking traffic on Fifth Avenue during a demonstration against police handling of last week's occupation of a university building. According to the New School Free Press, about 150 students, faculty, and supporters gathered outside the site of the occupation around 6 p.m. to condemn the NYPD and, once again, demand the resignation of president Bob Kerrey, who protesters blame for encouraging what they're calling a "brutal" and "violent" end to Friday's sit-in.

NYPD's Internal Affairs is looking into a Bronx family's charges that when cops came to break up their New Year's Eve celebrations, they crashed more than just the party. Emilio Serrano says that cops immediately started hitting him when they arrived to respond to a noise complaint. He tells 1010 WINS, "They just came and starting beating me with sticks, punching me in the face, kicking me." He says that a security video (captured on four cameras set up inside the apartment) shows police throwing guests down violently and spraying them with mace. He apparently had to get a staple in his scalp and has bruises on his face from the incident. Cops however say that the video will only vindicate them, showing that guests were acting belligerently toward them and that the Serranos were illegally using their apartment as a nightclub. It seems that parties this New Year's Eve just wouldn't wind down quietly—in Staten Island, a landlord is accused of breaking into a tenant's home and firing off a shotgun in order to put an abrupt end to the festivities.

Whether or not a jury finds NYPD officer Richard Kern guilty of sodomizing tattoo artist Michael Mineo with a baton after he resisted arrest in the Prospect Park subway station in October, the incident could cost tax payers as much as $200 million. Aside from the criminal case being prosecuted against Kern and two other officers, Mineo is pursuing compensation for his injuries in civil court, where his lawyers have filed a notice of claim seeking $200 million in damages from the city, the NYPD, and the officers involved. In an exclusive, NY1 reports that officials are currently evaluating the legal papers... and wondering how they're going to come up with that kind of money.

     

Here's a lede you don't see every day, courtesy the NY Times: "A New York City patrolman used his baton to sodomize a man in a subway station, and two complicit colleagues helped him cover it up, the Brooklyn district attorney charged on Tuesday as he unsealed indictments against three police officers. Using graphic detail, the district attorney described an attack that he said left the man, Michael Mineo, with a gashed anus and blood on his hands." (We'll miss you when you're gone, paper of record.)

Early this morning, the three police officers facing charges related to allegations that they beat and sodomized a man on a subway platform turned themselves in to the Brooklyn DA's office. The three will be arraigned this afternoon. DA Charles Hynes detailed the indictments against the cops: Police Officer Richard Kern was indicted on charges including "aggravated sexual abuse in the first degree, assault in the first degree, and hindering an investigation" while "Andrew Morales and Alex Cruz were also charged with hindering the investigation."

It turns out that DNA evidence helped a grand jury decide to indict three officers accused of beating and sodomizing a Brooklyn man. The Post reports that "tests confirmed" that DNA from accuser Michael Mineo (pictured) "was found on a piece of [Officer Richard] Kern's equipment used in the alleged assault." The indictment will be unsealed tomorrow; it's said that Kern will face charges of aggravated sexual assault, while two other officers will be indicted on lesser charges. Legal experts tell the NY Times the case against the cops "will hinge on two key elements: the extent and nature of the man’s injuries and the intent of the officers who might have caused them." But, referring to how the NYPD handled the accusation (by way of denial), the Reverend Al Sharpton said, "The internal affairs department of the New York City Police Department repeatedly said that ... [Mineo's] charges were groundless. Clearly police cannot police themselves."

Almost two months after a 24-year-old man accused cops of beating him and sodomizing him on a subway platform, a grand jury has indicted three police officers involved. While the indictment has not been officially communicated to lawyers, reports say that Officer Richard Kern was indicted for assault, while two other cops face lesser charges.

Law enforcement sources tell the Post that they expect charges are forthcoming against Officer Richard Kern for his role in the alleged sodomizing of Michael Mineo in the Prospect Park subway station while cops were detaining him last month. While there was no inclination on what will happen to the other three officers under investigation, the paper says that a grand jury indictment of Kern is expected after Thanksgiving. Meanwhile yesterday Kern issued a statement through his lawyer reaffirming that he did "absolutely nothing wrong" and said that any implication that he used excessive force in a 2007 police misconduct investigation he had been cleared of previously were "a complete lie."

Questions are being raised about the allegations made by Michael Mineo after this week's grand jury hearings against the officers he is accusing of sodomizing him while he was being arrested last month. Thursday's testimony from key witness and fellow arresting officer Kevin Maloney pointed the finger at Officer Richard Kern as being the one who used his police baton to sodomize Mineo. But Mineo's testimony accused Officer Alex Cruz of being the one who perpetrated the attack. Mineo's lawyer dismisses the discrepancy since Mineo was on the ground and could not have seen clearly which officer it was. Mineo appeared alongside Reverend Al Sharpton at a National Action Network rally today and thanked Sharpton for visiting him in the hospital last month.

After the first day of grand jury testimony, things do not look good right now for Officer Richard Kern, one of the cops accused of sodomizing Michael Mineo while he was being detained in the Prospect Park subway station last month. Yesterday Officer Kevin Malone, one of the other officers who arrested Mineo on October 15th, testified that he saw Kern place his metal baton against Mineo's left side and run it from left to right across his buttocks as Malone was handcuffing him. That baton is about 2 feet long and 1-1/4 inches in diameter.

The 24-year-old who says five police officers sodomized him with a police walkie-talkie last week spoke to the Daily News from his hospital bed. Michael Mineo, who was re-hospitalized, said, "The cops did this to me... I'm in so much pain... I've got pus coming out of me, man. I need help!" And the NY Post has photographs of Mineo being visited by the Reverend Al Sharpton, who called for an investigation into the matter and compared it to the Abner Louima incident.

The Yonkers police officer accused of throwing a woman onto a restaurant floor is saying that he did so because the woman was drunk and interfering with police. Irma Marquez is suing Yonkers police for $11 million for being body-slammed face-first into a tile floor by veteran officer Wayne Simoes last year. Marquez was in the hospital for days with a broken jaw and intense bruising on her face. She says she was attacked while trying to attend to her niece who was hit with a bottle. The accusation that she was intoxicated came out in court on Friday. Marquez's lawyer says that two other officers have already testified that she wasn't getting in the way.

Today at 2pm in Tompkins Square Park, there will be a punk concert to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the police riots that took place there. The NY Times has an account of the battle between cops and protesters that took place back on August 6th and 7th, 1988 over a city-imposed curfew of 1 a.m. that had been enacted in an attempt to clean up the rampant homeless population and drug usage that dominated the park's nights. The Times paints the anniversary celebration (which began last weekend) organized by Jerry Wade, aka "Jerry the Peddler", as a bit of an anachronism within a heavily gentrified East Village, pointing out, "these days the park’s curfew is one hour earlier, but it is rarely a source of controversy."

As the NYPD is caught in the controversy of a police officer apparently shoving a Critical Mass bicyclist to the ground for no reason, another disturbing video has surfaced showing a police officer beating a man repeatedly with a baton.

An 8-year veteran of the Yonkers police department was arrested for allegedly "body-slamming" a woman at a restaurant in 2007. Wayne Simoes was arrested and charged, per the U.S. Attorney's office, "with violation of federal civil rights laws" because it's illegal to for law enforcement to use "excessive force..the course of an arrest, stop, or seizure."