More from Human Rights Watch
NEW ORLEANS
....an officer was convicted in April 1996 of hiring a hit man to kill a woman who had lodged a brutality complaint against him and another officer was convicted in September 1995 for robbing a Vietnamese restaurant and shooting, execution style, a brother and sister who worked there, as well as an off-duty officer from her precinct working as security at the restaurant. In addition, at least fifty of the 1,400-member force have been arrested for felonies including homicide, rape, and robberies since 1993...
...After a white officer was killed in November 1980, mobs of police officers went on a rampage in Algiers, a black section of town, killing four and injuring as many as fifty residents. Some of the victims were tortured, including two who were dragged to swamps where the officers carried out mock executions...
...Officer Len Davis: Former Officer Len Davis, reportedly known in the Desire housing project as "Robocop," ordered the October 13, 1994 murder of Kim Groves, after he learned she had filed a brutality complaint against him. Federal agents had Davis under surveillance for alleged drug-dealing and recorded Davis ordering the killing, apparently without realizing what they had heard until it was too late. Davis mumbled to himself about the "30" he would be taking care of (the police code for homicide) and, in communicating with the killer, described Groves's standing on the street and demanded he "get that whore!" Afterward, he confirmed the slaying by saying "N.A.T.", police jargon for "necessary action taken." Community activists reported a chilling effect on potential witnesses or victims of brutality considering coming forward to complain following Groves's murder.According to a partial list of complaints and disciplinary action against Davis, obtained by an attorney, he was the subject of at least twenty complaints between 1987 and 1992, most involving brutality and physical intimidation; in most cases the complaints were not sustained, but in one case he was suspended for fifty-one days for hitting a woman in the head with his flashlight. One officer told a reporter,"He's got an internal affairs jacket as thick as a telephone book, but supervisors have swept his dirt under the rug for so long that it's coming back to haunt them...
...Lt. Christopher Maurice: Lt. Christopher Maurice was charged with two counts of simple battery by the district attorney's office on August 10, 1994, after allegedly assaulting two motorists during separate traffic stops on Interstate 10. In one of the cases, Maurice allegedly slammed the head of radio personality Richard Blake (known as Robert Sandifer), against his police car's hood after Blake was pulled over on June 22, 1994. Blake reportedly suffered facial lacerations. The altercation began when Blake yelled at Maurice, who was in an unmarked car, to slow down after he tailgated then quickly passed Blake's car; after the incident, Blake did not get a ticket.Prior to this incident, Maurice reportedly had been the subject of more than a dozen discourtesy and brutality complaints. According to civil service records,Maurice had been reprimanded twice between 1985 and 1994, and suspended once. The suspension stemmed from an argument with a neighbor in which he allegedly brandished his gun...
...Possibly criminal acts by officers, when pursued, are presented to grand juries, which are traditionally lenient toward police defendants. Officers are almost always cleared, while the public has no access to the proceedings, nor can outsiders monitor or evaluate their degree of vigor...
NEW YORK
...NY1 News local television channel poll released in February 1997 found that 81 percent of blacks and 73 percent of Hispanics believe police brutality is a serious problem in the city...
...Racial tensions were exacerbated after the August 1994 shooting of an undercover officer Desmond Robinson, an African-American, by white off-dutyofficer Peter Del Debbio during confusion after a shot was fired on a subway train. Del Debbio allegedly thought Robinson was involved in a crime because he had a gun; Del Debbio reportedly shut his eyes and shot, hitting Robinson five times, including two or three shots that allegedly were fired as the wounded officer was falling or on the ground. Del Debbio was convicted on second-degree assault charges. Minority-group activists claimed that the shooting demonstrated racial bias because the white officer assumed the black officer was a criminal...
...On June 13, 1996, another racially charged shooting, this one fatal, led to protests in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. Aswan Watson, an African-American, was shot eighteen times by plainclothes officers as he sat in a stolen car; he was unarmed...
...Case of Abner Louima: In the early morning hours of August 9, 1997, police officers arrested Abner Louima, a legal Haitian immigrant, outside a Brooklyn nightclub following altercations between police and clubgoers. During the trip to the station house, officers allegedly stopped twice to beat Louima, who was handcuffed. At the 70th Precinct station house, two officers, Justin Volpe and Charles Schwarz, allegedly shouted racial slurs and Volpe allegedly shoved a wooden stick (believed to be the handle of a toilet plunger or broom) into Louima's rectum and mouth. Volpe reportedly borrowed gloves from another officer and walked through the station house with the wooden stick, which was covered with blood and excrement; the gloves were recovered, but the wooden stick was not found on the scene. Louima was placed in a holding cell, where other inmates complained that he was bleeding. An ambulance was eventually requested to take him to a hospital, but he was held for three hours in the cell bleeding following thealleged beating and torture. Once at the hospital, doctors confirmed Louima's serious internal injuries were consistent with his allegations; internal organs were ruptured, and his front teeth had been broken.A nurse at the hospital where Louima was treated reportedly called the Internal Affairs Bureau to report the serious injuries later on the day he was hospitalized - the same day the incident took place - yet her complaint was not logged properly or submitted to the district attorney's office, as required.After the incident, the commanding and executive officers of the 70th Precinct were reassigned, and another fourteen officers reportedly were placed on modified assignment or suspended. According to the NYCLU, the fourteen officers who were either arrested, suspended, transferred or placed on desk duty in the week following the alleged torture of Louima had been accused, among them, of eleven prior unsubstantiated excessive force complaints and of another five misconduct complaints that had been ruled inconclusive or resolved through conciliation...
...On July 4, 1996, Nathaniel Levi Gaines, Jr., was shot in the back and killed by Officer Colecchia on a Bronx subway platform after Gaines had been frisked and Colecchia knew he carried no weapons. The victim was black, the officer was white. Colecchia waited two days before providing his account of what had taken place...
...In April 1993, Edward Domínguez was the passenger in a friend's car that broke down in the Bronx as a police squad car followed it. Officers reportedly suspected Domínguez and his friends had stolen the car. Domínguez was arrested though never charged. During the arrest, Officer Rodríguez allegedly kicked Domínguez in the testicles; later, one testicle had to be surgically removed due to the injury. At the station house, Domínguez repeatedly complained to a sergeant that he had been injured, and the sergeant, while placing his hand on his gun, reportedly responded by telling him that he had fallen down and had not been hurt by an officer...
...The shooting of William Whitfield on December 25, 1997 by Officer Michael J. Davitt; Officer Davitt reportedly shot and killed Whitfield, who was unarmed. Officers were responding to a report of shots being fired when Whitfield, who reportedly was uninvolved in the incident to which the officers were responding, did not obey the officers' orders to stop and entered a store. Officer Davitt claims he believed the keys or hat Whitfield was holding were a gun and shot him.After the incident, it was discovered that Davitt had been involved in more shootings than any other officer on the city's force, shooting nine times in fourteen years. Davitt reportedly had also been the subject of twelve unsubstantiated complaints...
PHILADELPHIA
...Officer John Baird: One product of the flawed internal affairs system was John Baird. In his deposition relating to the 39th District scandal, Baird stated, "I never feared an IAD investigation....[T]he way things were done, I mean, unless there is [sic] a whole lot of witnesses against you and a whole lot of pressure, you're not ever going to get found guilty of anything." Baird had been the subject of more than twenty complaints prior to pleading guilty to robbery, obstruction of justice and conspiracy to violate civil rights charges, yet received perfect job ratings throughout his career. In fact, investigations into Baird's actions, and those of other officers from the 39th District, only took place after one of the victims, Arthur Colbert, pursued his brutality and other complaints with the assistance of the public defender's office and, eventually, the U.S. Attorney's office. Colbert was stoppedby Baird and another officer in February 1991 and allegedly beaten and threatened with death if he did not provide information about his drug stash, even though there was no indication that he was dealing drugs...
...Officer Rodney Hunt: In two off-duty incidents in 1990 and 1991, Hunt shot and killed two men and wounded a woman bystander. On November 4, 1990, Hunt shot Sean Wilson several times after intervening in a bar fight; the bar was known as a drug trafficking and gambling center. Witnesses said that Wilson, who had shot at Hunt as the argument escalated, was shot while he was lying face down on the ground. According to a police abuse expert who examined the physical evidence, the witnesses were supported by the evidence: nine shots hit Wilson in the back, buttocks, and the back of the upper thigh, and forensic examination reportedly showed that at least one bullet hole in Wilson's jacket was made by a gun held rightnext to Wilson's body. Two of the exit wounds indicated that Wilson's body was pressed against a hard surface, such as the ground, when the bullets exited his body.On March 24, 1991 - as a grand jury was investigating Wilson's death - Hunt killed another person in an off-duty dispute at a party. At a party at 3:00 a.m., Hunt shot a man and wounded a woman bystander after intervening in a fight...
...Officer Carl Holmes: On January 5, 1992, Holmes saw a man urinating in an alley. He tackled him and, IAD confirmed, stepped on his groin, kicked him,slammed him into a car, and hit the man on the head. Commissioner Neal suspended Holmes for twenty days, but Holmes appealed and got the punishment reduced to five days. According to the Philadelphia police department's personnel office, he has since been promoted to lieutenant....
PORTLAND
...In 1985, two Portland officers were reinstated by an arbitrator after they were fired for selling "Don't Choke `Em, Smoke `Em" t-shirts on the day of the funeral of Lloyd "Tony" Stevenson, who reportedly had been killed by a police chokehold...
...in 1982, a woman sued Officer George Fort for using excessive force after a November 1981 incident in Multnomah County when Fort pulled her vehicle over. She asked not to be put in his squad car in front of her neighbors, and he allegedly twisted her arm behind her back, pushed her to the pavement, shoved her face into the ground, and yanked her to her feet using her handcuffed wrists. She was charged with resisting arrest - charges that were later dismissed - and the civil jury found that Fort had falsely arrested the woman...
...Officer Douglas Erickson: On July 19, 1993, two officers shot twenty-seven times at Gerald Frank Gratton as he fled from a bus in North Portland; the bus driver had complained that Gratton and his brother were acting unruly. He was struck by the bullets in the back and the arm, and a bullet grazed his head; he survived. Gratton, an African-American, had a gun in his waistband, but did not pull the gun or use it during the incident...
...Nathan Thomas shooting: On January 16, 1992, Nathan Thomas, age twelve, was taken hostage in his home. Officers fired when the intruder threatened to kill Thomas, killing them both. Thomas's parents chose not to sue the city, but instead to use their son's memory to push for police reforms. The City Council hired a consultant, Pierce Brooks, to look independently at the shooting. He recommended the creation of an inspector's office outside the police bureau's internal investigations office to analyze extraordinary incidents such as shootings. No such office was created...
PROVIDENCE
...The case of Corey West: On January 17, 1995, white Providence Police officer Richard F. Ruggiero, Jr., a rookie, allegedly kicked Corey West, an African-American, repeatedly as he lay on the ground outside a nightclub; the encounter was captured on videotape and broadcast on local news programs. Ruggiero told television reporters that he kicked West because he thought he was reaching for Ruggiero's nightstick. Ruggiero was suspended without pay after then-Chief Gannon saw the videotape. Gannon complained that Ruggiero's refusal to tell his side of the story to investigators did not help matters...
...Frank Sherman: Frank Sherman, age sixteen, filed a brutality complaint after Foster (Providence County) police officer, Robert G. Sabetta, allegedly struck Sherman in the face with a flashlight, knocking out two teeth on January 9, 1992. After an internal investigation, Sabetta was suspended with pay. He was indicted by a grand jury in March 1993, for assault with a dangerous weapon, and then suspended without pay. In April 1993, even though he was ordered to stay away from Sherman and his friends, Sabetta found them working on cars late at night at a garage in Foster, where he shot and killed Frank Sherman, his brother Charles, and friend Jeremy Bullock. The Shermans' cousin, Darryl Drake, was shot but survived...
SAN FRANCISCO
...Officer Daniel Yawczak: The killing of Michael Acosta was a case where an officer put himself in harm's way against departmental guidelines and successfully defended his use of a firearm on that basis. On November 2, 1991, Officer Daniel Yawczak shot and killed Acosta. With his gun drawn, Yawczak had chased two suspected purse-snatchers to an idling car in the Pacific Heights neighborhood, where he twice shot Acosta, who was sitting in the driver's seat; the men were unarmed. Yawczak claimed that he shot Acosta while standing in front of the car, ignoring police training by placing himself in harm's way; he initially claimed he jumped on the hood of the car and then shot at Acosta, but later reportedly recanted that part of his account. Yawczak also originally stated that he was bumped by the car and shot the second time while seated on the ground; when a medical examiner disputed that part of Yawczak's account, and a witness reported seeing Yawczak run alongside the car and shoot, Yawczak stated that it was possible he had not shot from a seated position. If these witnesses' accounts are to be believed, the second shot would have been an unjustified use of force...
...Officer William Wohler: The shooting of Brian Sullivan exposed serious weaknesses in homicide investigations of police and in internal review of the use of firearms. On July 15, 1993, Brian Sullivan was shot and killed by Officer William Wohler, at Sullivan's parents' home in the Excelsior District. Sullivan had an unloaded shotgun on his bike when Wohler responded to an emergency call about him. He was riding on a bicycle, away from Wohler in his car, and rode into his parent's garage and closed the garage door. Wohler reportedly opened fire through the closed garage door. He then followed Sullivan to a side yard, and as Sullivan started up a ladder to the roof, unarmed, Wohler reportedly fired twice; one bullet entered Sullivan's buttocks and traveled to his heart, killing him. Although Wohler later stated he had never entered the side yard, his bullet casing was found near where a neighbor said she saw him stand and shoot up at Sullivan...
...Sgt. Joseph Weatherman: The department took years to dismiss a highly decorated sergeant, Joseph Weatherman, despite his long history of citizen complaints. He was the focus of many citizen complaints and was sued for the use of excessive force six times. In 1992 he was suspended for sixty days for slapping and punching a suspect; on an earlier occasion, he had to perform community service for beating a youth during an off-duty incident. All along he was promoted. He was finally dismissed in August 1994 for harassing a woman officer who had ended a relationship with him...
WASHINGTON D.C
...In November 1996, Officer Richard Fitzgerald, white, was convicted in D.C. Superior Court of assault charges for beating a drug suspect, who was black, after a chase on August 25, 1993. The 4th District officer, a member of the troubled 1990 class, allegedly hit the man in the head repeatedly with his nightstick. The department considered Fitzgerald's actions justified, and Fitzgerald claims that his supervisors told him that he deserved praise for making a difficult arrest. Yet fellow officers reported that he did not have to keep hitting the suspect, and since fellow officers' testimony is usually taken more seriously than citizens', the officer was convicted. Fitzgerald had been the subject of six complaints and was formally reprimanded when he was questioning a Latino in 1995 and told an ethnic joke about hitting Latinos harder to make them speak English...
