PEOPLES MOVEMENT

NEW YORK (WOMENSENEWS)— Melinda Hernandez, a member of the jury that last week acquitted two New York police officers, is distressed by a process that she felt left her no choice but to vote not guilty. Justice, she says, was not served.

“As a feminist it really challenged my values to vote not guilty,” an emotionally spent Hernandez told Women’s eNews in an exclusive telephone interview on May 30.

In particular, she was concerned about the way forensic evidence—in a case concerning police as perpetrators—went through the New York Police Department lab and was then sent to New York Medical Examiners lab. “I think they should have hired an independent person to collect the evidence,” Hernandez says. “There’s just common sense behind that.”

While acquitted of the rape charge, the two officers—Kenneth Moreno, 43, and Franklin Mata, 29—were convicted last week of official misconduct and fired from the force the same day. They will be sentenced by the State Supreme Court on June 28 and each face up to two years behind bars. Had they been found guilty of rape, the pair could have been in jail for up to 25 years.

In December 2008, the accuser celebrated a job promotion in a Brooklyn bar and became intoxicated. After drinks at the club, she took a taxi to her apartment building in downtown Manhattan and the taxi driver called the police to assist her out of the taxi and up to her fifth-floor walk up. Moreno and Mata responded. Videotapes from security cameras indicated the two police offers returned three more times to her apartment that night.

Hernandez says the woman testified that she was passed out and lying on her stomach and awoke to being penetrated by a penis. Then she passed out again. During the trial, she says it was revealed that Moreno was in the room with her and Mata was said to have been sleeping on her couch.

During a controlled meeting—initiated by the internal affairs department of the New York Police Department—Moreno was confronted by the victim, who was wearing a recording device, outside the 9th precinct. She told him that they took advantage of her. He denied the accusation many times. She told him that she awoke to him having sex with her. Again, he denied anything had happened.

It wasn’t until the woman threatened to go into the precinct and make a scene that Moreno admitted to wearing a condom. He also assured the woman that she “didn’t have to worry about getting any diseases.” She asked if it was the two of them and Moreno told her it was just him. Moreno later claimed that he had said that to get her to leave him alone.

The verdict set off a storm of controversy in New York City, with a large demonstration led by members of the City Council’s Women’s Caucus, the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women, Feministing and Permanent Wave.

Here are Hernandez’s reflections on the case. She spoke from an undisclosed location as she continued to avoid her own home due to pressure from news media for an interview. Three central features of the case led her to cast her “not guilty” vote: the lack of any evidence gathered from the accuser’s apartment; the nature of alcohol-induced blackouts as described by an expert witness; and an absent key witness.

Q: Why are you choosing to speak with Women’s eNews?

A: I felt it was just safer. You are produced by women for women and you won’t print things I didn’t say or add drama.

Q: We see that you’ve been quoted somewhat in the press, to the extent of a comment about being emotionally drained.

A: I never gave an interview. Someone came to the front desk of my apartment building and told the concierge that she was there to visit me. I was contacted on my cell phone by the concierge. I asked to speak with the woman. She turned out to be a reporter. I told her I was too upset to speak with anyone about the case now. The media even showed up at my parent’s house. I haven’t even been home yet. I’m staying somewhere else.

Q: What was the composition of the jury; how many men and how many women?

A: Five women and seven men, a good balance. From the beginning—at the first vote the panel took when it began its deliberations—it was nine to three; nine for not guilty, three for guilty. I was among the three who thought the police were guilty.

Q: But you wound up voting “not guilty.”

A: It all came down to the forensic evidence. There was none at all. No hair, no semen, no pubic hairs in the evidence collected from the apartment or in the rape kit collected at the hospital. There was a small red patch found on her cervix, but that could have been caused by several things, including penetration by a penis.

There was no solid proof from the evidence collected or the rape kit. Not even fingerprints. Not even fibers from police uniforms. Many pieces of material were taken from the apartment. But there were no fingerprints. There was nothing there.

All the evidence was collected by the NYPD internal affairs investigator and was taken to police crime lab. After it was examined there, then it was sent to the medical examiners lab.

Q: Was there ever any question of police tampering of the evidence?

A: You can’t raise that kind of speculation. That’s why I think the system failed her big-time.

Q: Wasn’t it strange that there was no evidence of the police in her apartment at all since there was no doubt that they had been there?

A: I thought the evidence, in this case, should have gone straight to the medical examiner. At the hospital, when they asked her if she wanted to contact the police, she and her friend said “no way.” That just tells you it shouldn’t have gone to the police lab.

Q: Why did the prosecutor allow it to go the police?

A: Perhaps that is a question that would be better to ask the prosecutors.

Q: It sounds like inebriation was a major factor in the verdict.

A: It was huge. Her drinking started in the afternoon and ended with several strong cocktails at a club. Her friends should never have put her in that cab by herself. The cab driver couldn’t help her get out of the cab which is why he called for police assistance.

Q: The jury tended to believe the police officers? They thought they had more credibility?

A: It’s not that they believed the police officers. It is that it was hard to believe her.

She used words like “I believe,” “I think something bad happened,” “I may have been raped.” Then she said, “I was raped by the cops.” This was during Grand Jury testimony in 2008. That really hurt her case, because there were holes in her story, again because of blacking out and-or passing out.

We went over the difference between blacking out and passing out. This was explained to us by expert witnesses. You can be walking and talking but not able to remember what happened later. She felt she had been penetrated. The first thing she did, when she got up that morning, was to take a shower. She then went to her friend’s apartment, in the same building, wearing a towel around her head and said she wanted to scrub off her skin.

One of her best friends was an attorney and rather than take the case to the police, they got in touch directly with the District Attorney’s office. The attorney-friend works for a firm that is now representing the accused in a $57 million lawsuit against the city. I believe she could not be a witness because it might have been a conflict of interest.

Q: So she washed away the evidence? How could you hope to convict if she showered before going to a hospital?

A: During jury selection, right from the start, we were asked if we thought that if there was no DNA evidence that a rape still could have occurred. Every one of us said yes to that.

Q: So then it came down to whose testimony you believed?

A: Belief is not part of what you’re instructed to consider. We had to consider testimony, evidence and the facts. There again it was complicated because she was quite drunk.

Q: Did the prosecutor emphasize that a woman who is drunk is unable to consent to sexual activity?

A: I don’t believe so, but I’m not sure. In any case, what if the consent comes out of your mouth and you don’t remember it because you’ve blacked out?

Q: The victim remained confident that she had been raped?

A: There was no doubt in her mind about what had happened. A woman knows when she is penetrated. But without any evidence, it couldn’t be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. And if there is a reasonable doubt you must acquit.

Q: You sound exhausted.

A: I’ve shed many tears in this case. I’m a seasoned juror. I’ve served on nine juries including this one.

Q: Was this your hardest experience?

A: Let’s put it this way: “I hope that I’ll never be called for jury duty again.”

Q: Were you aware of the intense media interest before the verdict?

A: The media was in the courtroom every day. The day of the verdicts the courtroom was packed. After the verdicts were read the jurors asked to be escorted out by a private entrance. That’s why the media has been looking for us.

Q: What did you think when you heard about the women’s rights protest in New York against the verdict?

A: I’m on the mailing list for NOW, (the National Organization for Women) and I got the e-mail regarding the protest. I was a juror and I am a feminist. This was devastating to me. But I had to do my job and be fair and impartial. A person is innocent until proven guilty. The burden—and it is a burden—remains on the victim. Perhaps if there were women demonstrating outside the courthouse every day it may have helped the jurors be more aware and more conscious of their verdicts. Who knows? Waiting until after the day of verdict was too much too late.

Q: What do you think protests outside the courthouse during the trial would have done?

A: It would have sent a message that women cared about what was going on inside the court, that women believed the victim!

The one positive thing that might come out of this is it could set a fire under women to get out there and show some presence. Women are still not equal under the U.S. Constitution.

On May 28, 2011 Television host Adam Kokesh and several other activists participating in a flash-mob were arrested at the publicly-funded Thomas Jefferson Memorial. Their crime? Silently dancing, in celebration of the first amendment’s champion; a clear violation of their right to free-expression. In an excessive use of force, video was captured of Adam being body slammed and placed in a choke for his non-crime.

And here is the highlight reel:

Earlier this month the New York Police Department ran an anti-terrorism exercise simulating an attack on the city. But it was an exercise with a difference, the Wall Street Journal reported in its Tuesday edition.

A team of terrorists unleashed a coordinated series of bombings and gun attacks around the city in the simulation. At one point, terrorists attacked New York police officials visiting wounded officers in a hospital. By the time the day-long attacks were over, dozens of people had been killed and many more wounded.

The NYPD simulation was different from any of the terrorist incidents that have actually hit New York, such as the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks when terrorists hijacked planes to destroy the World Trade Center, or the foiled Times Square car-bombing attempt in May of this year.

sports_story_lower sports_page quigo_lower 1482096 871776 440 225 * —>

Instead, the simulation deliberately mirrored the 2008 massacre in Mumbai. Within minutes of one another on the night of Nov. 26, 2008, 10 gunmen attacked various locations in the Indian capital, including two luxury hotels, a hospital and a railway station. The attack stretched on for three days as hostages were taken at several of the locations. Ultimately, 174 people were killed.

Until Mumbai, NYPD counterterrorism officials felt reasonably comfortable that they were prepared for any type of terrorist attack. But that comfort level was built on preparing for a single event, not a series of coordinated attacks that would terrorize a city for days on end.

“The Mumbai attack two years ago was a bit of a game changer,” Mitchell Silber, head of the NYPD’s intelligence analysis division, said. “It was a model that most counterterrorism practitioners hadn’t really considered.

“The armed gunmen roaming around the city taking hostages, that wasn’t something we had seen by any jihadist group. That was a real eye-opener.”

Silber said the more NYPD officials learned about the Mumbai attacks “the more similarities we saw between Mumbai city and New York City.” Both, he said, are financial centers; both are surrounded by water on three sides; both get intense media attention.

The latest simulation made additional sense, he said, in light of the rumors this past fall that jihadists were planning another “Mumbai-style” attack somewhere in Europe.

The department has taken other steps to prepare for a similar attack.

Since Mumbai, the NYPD has trained and equipped an additional 375 officers to use “heavy weapons” for a prolonged siege situation, Paul Browne, the NYPD’s spokesman said.

The heavy weapons — MP5 submachine guns and Mini-14 semiautomatic carbine rifles — are needed to counteract military-style assault weapons like the ones used in Mumbai.

via nypost.com

• Ashlei Quinones

  

  Persecution complex: The Internal Affairs Bureau at 315 Hudson Street

• C.S. Muncy

  

  Filing a lawsuit as “John Doe,” a gay detective in IAB says he is constantly harassed.

• C.S. Muncy

  

  Detective Michael DePaolis is in official limbo as he is watched by IAB cameras while he works.

• C.S. Muncy

  

  Detective Michael DePaolis

Details:

We’ve heard relatively little, however, about the NYPD wing that is supposed to be watching for these kinds of injustices: the Internal Affairs Bureau. Until now.

More officers have come forward, telling the Voice that the secretive police-department-within-a-department is as troubled as the rest of Kelly’s operation. To illustrate this, we will look at three unrelated Internal Affairs cases: One involves a Queens woman who says she was stalked, harassed, and impregnated by an NYPD sergeant; the other, a veteran detective stuck in a dead-end job requiring him to watch surveillance video all day; and the third, a gay cop in the Internal Affairs Bureau itself who faced constant harassment over his sexual identity. (The NYPD did not respond to detailed questions about these cases.)

Taken together, the three cases highlight several themes about the current Internal Affairs Bureau.

For one, all IAB complaints are supposed to be confidential. That rule is necessary because police officers who complain about their colleagues can and do face retaliation. But the reality seems to be that an officer’s home command will find out fairly quickly that an Internal Affairs complaint has been made. Several officers have complained to the Voice that shortly after they filed complaints with Internal Affairs, their home commands knew about it and then pursued various types of retaliation against them.

Second, whether big or small, IAB cases seem to plod through the system at the same snail’s pace. There doesn’t seem to be any mechanism to deal quickly with a minor case—an office dispute, for example. Thus, cases drag on, and aggrieved, frustrated cops turn to the courts to resolve their issues. That, in turn, costs the city more money in legal bills and settlements.

Third, it’s impossible—even for the people who file the complaints—to find out what was done and what happened with a complaint. Internal Affairs investigators often don’t return complainants’ phone calls.

Fourth, it seems that often, very little happens with a complaint—and it takes a long time not to happen.

Finally, the system is fairly capricious, and its decisions are often puzzling. In two cases with similar circumstances, one detective might be allowed to retire without charges, while another might be charged and face termination. And because of the insular nature of today’s NYPD, it’s not likely you’ll find out why. Police officers who fall out of favor are just as likely to receive an unfavorable assignment as face a charge—a point made by a former departmental trial commissioner now in private practice.

The gay detective assigned to Internal Affairs tells the Voice that there were times when IAB bosses did not take complaints seriously, gave them short shrift, wrote out reports to make the complaints seem less serious than they were, and allowed cases to linger on unresolved. He recalls one Internal Affairs detective who often spent time at work using the Internet to shop for clothes and plan vacations, and another co-worker who routinely looked at pornographic photographs at work.

“The classic line of ‘It’s under investigation’ just means it’s gathering dust on someone’s desk, particularly in my case,” says the officer, who asked the Voice not to use his name. “There is no confidentiality. I had no sense that the complaints were taken seriously or treated confidentially.”

One of the IAB’s primary responsibilities is to protect the public against cops who abuse their positions. Consider, then, the case of Jessica Varney, a 23-year-old African-American woman from Queens who fell prey to a sergeant in a Ridgewood, Queens, precinct, who used his badge to pressure her to date him, then stalked her and ultimately threatened her with violence, according to a notice of claim filed by her attorney, Joel Berger.

Varney was impregnated twice by the sergeant. She had an abortion the first time, but carried the second child to full term.

She tells the Voice that she met Sergeant Robert Ellington in October 2008, a period when she was fighting with her landlord at 1874 Harmon Street in Ridgewood over lead paint in the apartment and other matters.

Ellington was initially helpful about the dispute, she says, and then solicitous, calling her every day, and eventually persuading her to go out with him. “He asked me if I liked Italian guys. He said he wanted to get to know me more,” she says. “He got very personal, talking about divorcing his wife. I was shocked. I didn’t know this guy.”

Ellington eventually persuaded Varney to go out with him, but she expected something simple, in the neighborhood. Instead, he took her to Atlantic City.

Varney says she was very uncomfortable about the whole thing, but she went along with it. Next, he brought her to his house on Long Island. “That’s when things got weird,” she says. “He has this camera, and he says, I like you, find you attractive. My wife doesn’t satisfy me.”

“We’re aware of Ms. Varney’s allegations, and we’re confident in the end that Sergeant Ellington will be exonerated,” Ellington’s attorney, Bruno Gioffre, tells the Voice. Gioffre declined to address Varney’s specific allegations because the case is still under investigation by the NYPD.

Ellington asked her to “satisfy” him. She refused, but he insisted. Holding a camera, he told her that she wasn’t going home until she performed a sex act with him. She says she fled to the bathroom. He convinced her to come out, and then, she claims, he gave her a glass of water that made her feel light-headed. She didn’t pass out, she says, but she “felt looser, and kept seeing camera flashes.”

“When I came to five hours later—it was 6 a.m.—he was smiling,” she says. “He says you really satisfied me. He told me he had taken pictures, and he showed me the camera.”

Ellington, she says, brought her home, and then kept calling her, asking for a second chance and even giving her son a toy fire truck.

That January, he appeared at her apartment again, and Varney asked him for the pictures he had taken of her. He insisted that she ride with him to get them.

“I just wanted to get out, but he drove me to his house on Long Island,” she says. “He handcuffed me in the bedroom and left me there. Then he comes back, and I tell him I want to go home, but he says you’re not going home until you do what I want.”

Varney claims that Ellington then took her to his basement and locked her down there for another four hours. He also took her phone and purse. “He’s telling me I disrespected him, and this was my punishment,” she says. “After that, I gave in and let him do whatever. I didn’t know what else he was going to do. I didn’t think he would let me leave.”

Finally, Ellington drove her home, both apologizing and accusing her at one point of “trying to make him angry.” She says she was terrified.

Eventually, Varney went to the 104th Precinct to file a complaint, but it didn’t seem to go anywhere. Ellington learned of it and threatened, she claims, to make her life “a living hell.”

In the meantime, she began to reconcile with her son’s father, Domingo Figueroa. Figueroa ended up getting arrested at their apartment for “violating an order of protection” by officers from Ellington’s precinct, the 104th.

She had another bizarre encounter with a cop from the 104th Precinct. A lieutenant, she claims, came to her apartment to talk about her order of protection against Ellington.

“He asks me to use the bathroom, comes out, and says, ‘I like the shape of your lips, your eyes—you’re an attractive woman,” she claims. He says, ‘Can we work something out?’ I said, ‘You’re scaring me.’ He says, ‘Give me a hug and I’ll leave.’ I told him to leave. He grabs me, puts his tongue in my mouth. He grabs my right hand and puts it on his penis. I’m crying.”

Varney claims that when the lieutenant left, he said, “I’m going to leave, but we need to finish this. It’s Valentine’s Day, and I don’t have anyone.”

The following day, the lieutenant called Varney to apologize. But that same day, February 15, she was arrested based on a complaint filed by her landlord.

The lieutenant appeared at her cell that day, and told her he was releasing her, she says. “I’m doing you a favor, and you owe me a favor,” she says he told her.

At the end of February 2009, Varney moved in with her mother—mainly to get away from Ellington.

In late September 2009, Ellington appeared at her house on Long Island. He told her that if he couldn’t have her, no one could have her. He told her that his wife had found out about her. Varney says he slapped her, pushed her against a wall outside her home, and drew his firearm. “He had that gun in my face and against my stomach,” she says.

A neighbor called the Suffolk County police. An officer arrived and began questioning them. The officer asked her if she wanted to press charges. She says she was scared of Ellington, so she made up a story that someone else had assaulted her.

But the Suffolk County officer, sensing something was strange, insisted on speaking with her outside of Ellington’s hearing. She later went to the 5th Precinct in Suffolk County, made a complaint, and got an order of protection from the court against Ellington.

Ellington was finally arrested in January for menacing with a firearm and endangering the welfare of a child. “He had to be arrested for what he did,” she says. “It wasn’t even a relationship. It was harassment.” He was placed on modified assignment after his arrest, and he was transferred to a housing police precinct. Since then, the case has been pending in the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office.

Varney’s attorney, Joel Berger, says he’s concerned that the case has run aground mainly because three different prosecutors have been assigned to the case, but none of them will return his or Varney’s phone calls.

“Suffolk seems to be dragging its feet on the case,” Berger says. “Either they aren’t interested or maybe Internal Affairs is giving them a hard time. It would be one thing if the cops didn’t believe her, but she impresses me as a total innocent. They believed her. So why—suddenly—aren’t the prosecutors believing her?”

Varney says she filed a series of complaints with the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau about officers at the precinct, including Ellington. She has had no indication that IAB has done anything about those complaints.

Internal Affairs, Berger says, doesn’t seem to have looked seriously into any of the complaints his client filed. “With IAB, you just never know what’s happening,” he says. “In the NYPD, it seems that who you know is more important than what you did.”

He filed a notice of claim on Varney’s behalf in February.

Robert Clifford, a spokesman for the Suffolk County District Attorney, did not respond to Voice e-mails requesting comment. Mary Skiber, the prosecutor currently assigned to the case, also did not return Voice e-mails.

Ellington is facing another lawsuit for falsely arresting one of Varney’s neighbors, Gerardo Mayol, who then suffered a stroke in custody that left him with slurred speech and an unsteady gait.

Mayol claims he was about to testify against Varney in an eviction case brought by their landlord. He claims she got Ellington to send police officers to arrest him on a stalking charge. He claims Ellington threatened to “put my fucking foot up your ass,” the lawsuit alleges.

Mayol says he subsequently fell ill, but no ambulance was called until he keeled over from the stroke. He spent 20 days in the hospital. When he returned to his apartment, Ellington visited several times, banging on his door and threatening to arrest him. Mayol’s arrest was dismissed.

The lawsuit claims that both Ellington and a “Lieutenant John Doe #1” “were involved in a furtive relationship with Varney.” The lawsuit alleges the two officers have “shown themselves to be morally unfit to hold such important and powerful positions in our society.”

Varney, for her part, claims that Mayol was harassing her over a period of months. Berger says that she will be dismissed as a plaintiff under the rules for court deadlines.

Mayol is suing Ellington, four other NYPD officers, and Varney for $540 million. Mayol’s lawyer, Brian King, has alleged in court documents that the city is dragging its feet in the case, and is demanding a default ruling from the court.

The city has denied the allegations and has asked the judge to delay proceedings until the completion of the Internal Affairs investigation. Earlier this month, a judge agreed to stay the case, but the NYPD Department Advocate’s Office has filed preliminary charges against Ellington.

“The Mayol incident occurred in February 2009, and his lawyer filed a notice of claim on May 1, 2009, so Ellington was probably on IAB’s radar screen at the time he allegedly pulled his gun on Varney in September 2009,” Berger says. “How could a guy like Ellington have gotten away with so much for so long? Who does he know in IAB or elsewhere in the NYPD who has protected him?”

If the mystery in the Ellington case is why IAB took so long to act against him, for Detective Michael DePaolis, the mystery is why IAB acted at all.

For the past six years, DePaolis, an 18-year veteran of the NYPD from Staten Island, has been marooned in a unit where officers spend all day sitting at desks and watching video screens. He gets paid close to $100,000 a year to do that.

DePaolis, however, is on full duty, unlike every other officer in Viper Four, a unit that is mainly staffed by officers on desk assignment with open disciplinary cases. The Viper Four unit monitors video cameras in public-housing developments in Lower Manhattan—and the NYPD also trains cameras on Viper Four to make sure the officers don’t wander away from those screens.

DePaolis says the Viper office is dirty, dark, and ridden with rats and mice. He acknowledges that he has struggled with cancer and has bouts of chronic fatigue syndrome, but he has been cleared to work full duty.

Even stranger, he has been repeatedly instructed not to take police action, even when he sees a crime take place right in front of him. He has actually received reprimands for taking action, including responding to a stabbing and an assault.

DePaolis tells the Voice that he desperately wants to return to a detective squad and work cases. So far, no one in the NYPD is listening. “Even if you see someone being raped, you can’t do anything,” he says. “You can’t go anywhere. You can’t ‘do a great job’ and be advantageously transferred. You have a scarlet letter on your head.”

So why is he in such limbo? DePaolis says he dared to go outside the department to complain about the way he was treated in a disciplinary case. He made a complaint to the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), the moderately effective oversight body that has a $10 million annual budget to oversee more than 6,000 complaints a year from New Yorkers. The NYPD budget is more than $4 billion.

He made the CCRB complaint as a result of how he was treated over an issue about real estate. While he was an NYPD officer, he also owned property in Staten Island and was accepting tenants from the federally funded Section 8 program. Since Section 8 is technically operated by city government, he was accused of doing business with the city while a city employee.

DePaolis was never charged with a crime, and the disciplinary charges were eventually settled for a minor penalty. Unhappy with how he was treated in the dispute, however, he complained to the CCRB, which then made him a target of the Internal Affairs Bureau, he says.

“He made a complaint to the CCRB, and for that reason, they have been torturing him,” says DePaolis’s lawyer, Rae Downes Koshetz. “That’s the way they send a message. And it’s certainly a poor use of taxpayers’ money to be paying someone $100,000 to stare at a video screen.”

For many years, Koshetz was the deputy commissioner of trials for the department. She says that in recent years, the department has found ways to get around the adversarial disciplinary system in which officers get to defend themselves.

“The courts have let the police commissioner have a lot of discretion in assignment,” she says. “There really has been an institutionalized circumvention of due process [in the NYPD]. They use punitive assignments to punish people.”

Most recently, DePaolis received a favorable write-up in the Staten Island Advance in a story about a woman who committed suicide by jumping off the Staten Island Ferry. The woman, who had no next of kin, was going to be buried in Potter’s Field, but DePaolis and the director of a local funeral home have offered to put up the money to bury her properly. Since the article, he was able to track down a relative of the dead woman. “During the wake, they actually gave me a round of applause,” he says. “It was a feeling I couldn’t even explain to you.”

In a period when the NYPD is down thousands of officers, one has to wonder why a career guy like DePaolis is sidelined, yet listed as full duty. One would think he could be useful as an investigator.

Finally, there is the story of a gay detective in Internal Affairs, who filed a lawsuit against the NYPD and persuaded a judge to allow him to file it anonymously under the name “John Doe.”

John, a 33-year-old former stockbroker who grew up on Long Island, claims that he has been harassed repeatedly for his sexual identity since he started as a police officer in the 103rd Precinct in Queens. The harassment got so bad that he asked for help in a letter that was hand-delivered to the police commissioner by his father.

“I wanted out of that environment,” John says. “They said, go to IAB.”

In May 2007, John transferred to Internal Affairs, but not before a fellow cop told him, “This will follow you wherever you go,” the lawsuit says.

John, who was asked to take complaints from the public, describes a “frat-house” environment in IAB, where flirting between male and female cops was commonplace, and terms like “fudgepacker,” “meat gazer,” “homo,” and “faggot” were used constantly about civilian complainants, and often directed at him. At one point, a sergeant came over to him with a banana between his legs and asked him, “Is this the size you like?”

John claims in his lawsuit that he told these co-workers not to use the epithets, and even suggested they shouldn’t handle complaints filed by gay people because they were so intolerant toward them.

At another point, a co-worker walked over to John’s desk and said, “You’re a meat gazer. I just caught you looking at my package.” For more than a year in 2008 and 2009, this co-worker called John a “meat gazer” several times a week, the lawsuit says.

Another time, John claims, a police officer simulated a vagina with two fingers and told him, “Your kind does not know what to do with it.”

“The most disturbing thing is that it has been continuing for years,” says one of John’s lawyers, Ishmael Secondas. “They don’t have tolerance for gay people. The comments were outrageous. Humiliating, degrading comments.”

John began filing complaints about the anti-gay remarks and his claims of harassment. “I was upset and stressed out about the harassment and abuse, and so I filed an IAB complaint,” he says. “After I filed the complaint, they told me they were taking my gun and shield, and ordered me to see a department psychiatrist.”

The first question that the psychiatrist asked him was whether he was going to bring a lawsuit, he says. “My first thought was, how is that question relevant?” he says.

After that, John got his gun and shield back, and was moved to a unit that issues parking placards for NYPD employees. Even though he was a detective, he was given a clerk’s duties. “Half the place is staffed by detectives, but they aren’t even performing detective duties or functions,” he says. “They actually have clerks doing the same work.”

His bosses, he says, started giving him a lot more work than the other people in the office. He complained, and his supervisor brought charges against him for insubordination. “They made my life miserable,” he says. “There was a backlog, and I was given 1,700 parking-related complaints to follow up on.”

Rather than being credited for coming forward, John instead found himself targeted by his bosses, he says. He says they knew very quickly that he had filed a complaint. A lieutenant told him, “You know what I’m talking about. You called [Internal Affairs Bureau] Chief [Charles] Campisi’s office and complained about me.”

And a sergeant told him, “If you make any more complaints, it’s not going to be good for you.”

On a third occasion, a different sergeant told him, “Why don’t you call Chief Campisi’s office and complain as you did in the past?”

“They can’t prevent the confidential information from being leaked,” Secondas says. “He was basically punished for making a complaint.”

Subsequently, he says, he requested at least five different transfers out of the unit, but those requests were ignored over a period of months, until he was finally moved to the IAB records unit at the beginning of October. He has since transferred to the court section.

Meanwhile, John was himself charged with a department infraction of duplicating his shield. He described the charge as “trumped-up” and further evidence of retaliation against him. He has never received any response for his various complaints to IAB. None of the officers he complained about have been disciplined, he says. And last September, he complained to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly’s liaison to gay and lesbian officers. He got no response.

“I’ve never had a case like this,” Secondas says.

grayman@villagevoice.com

AP/Mona Shafer Edwards

Artist’s sketch of Judge Robert Perry sentencing Johannes Mehserle.

As he sentenced former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle to two years in prison for involuntary manslaughter, Judge Robert Perry delivered unusually lengthy and detailed remarks. He laid out his view of the trial’s evidence, siding largely with the defense, and explained why he had to — in the interest of justice — throw out a separate allegation that Mehserle intentionally fired a gun at unarmed rider Oscar Grant during an arrest at Fruitvale Station in Oakland on Jan. 1, 2009.

Perry’s comments Nov. 5 in Los Angeles County Superior Court suggest he was concerned about how the public would receive his ruling. They elated defense attorneys, who saw them as vindicating not only their position that the shooting was an accident, but their view that the Alameda County district attorney’s office had overstepped and had given in to protesters and rioters when it sought a murder conviction.

The remarks stunned prosecutors and Grant’s relatives. They were particularly upset at Perry’s assertion that Grant had been resisting officers when he was shot, and at his statement that “no reasonable trier of fact” could agree with prosecutors that the shooting was intentional and not the result of Mehserle confusing his gun and Taser. Some of Grant’s family members walked out of court as Perry spoke.

The following are several excerpts from a transcript of Perry’s comments. The judge started by saying Grant had done nothing to warrant being killed and that the shooting was a tragedy for all involved:

One man’s life was needlessly taken, a second man’s life and career were devastated. Nothing this court can do or say can remedy the harm that came from that tragic incident. Nothing I can do will restore Oscar Grant to his family and loved ones. Nothing I can do will restore Johannes Mehserle to the life he led before those fateful few minutes on that platform.

Brant Ward/The Chronicle

Protesters face off at a July rally supporting Mehserle

Perry went on to lament that the case of a white police officer shooting a black man had polarized the community:

One thing I well understand, people see what they want to see and they hear what they want to hear in situations like this. Some people will see this case as the cold-blooded murder of a young man by a police officer. Others will see the case as the prosecution and conviction of a totally innocent man who made a tragic mistake. Nothing I do today will change those opinions.

According to Perry, though, race was not a factor in the case. Some critics of the police believe Grant would not have been shot, or even detained, if he were not black. Video footage showed that, just before the shooting, a second BART officer, Anthony Pirone, taunted Grant by shouting, “Bitch-ass n—, right?” But the defense said there was no evidence Mehserle heard him.

Oscar Grant was an African American. The defendant, Johannes Mehserle, is white. The court is well aware of the shameful history of racial injustice in this country. Well aware. But I can tell you I cannot and will not permit considerations of race to impact or influence my ruling, because I believe based on the evidence this was not a case about race. I do not believe based on the evidence the defendant was influenced by race.

Lance Iversen/The Chronicle

Taser like the one Mehserle wore.

Perry rejected prosecutor David Stein’s assertion that the jury had signaled it did not believe Mehserle’s Taser story by convicting him of a gun enhancement, which is defined as a suspect firing a gun intentionally:

It’s the court’s view that the jury found that Mehserle intended to draw his Taser and instead drew the gun. That is the only reasonable interpretation that I see in the verdicts in this case. Had the jury believed that Mehserle intended to shoot Grant, they would have returned a verdict for either murder or voluntary manslaughter.

Later, he added:

The district attorney argues that the jury could have found that Mehserle intended to use his firearm but did not intend to kill, that he did not consciously disregard risk to life when he fired into Grant’s back. I don’t think there’s any basis in the evidence for that suggestion and I think it’s — it strains credulity. Mehserle shot directly into Grant’s back from the distance of four feet. It is inconceivable that shooting someone in the back from that distance evidences anything other than a clear intent to kill.

Perry then went into great detail to explain why the shooting must have been an accident. One factor he cited was that Mehserle had no good reason to shoot Grant — which was precisely why prosecutors said the ex-officer should face harsh punishment.

Pirone was virtually in the line of fire. That is suggestive that this was an accident. Mehserle was on the platform for a very brief period, a matter of slightly more than two minutes, before pulling his gun and shooting Grant. He was not threatened by Grant, he had no reason to pull his gun and shoot Grant. Mehserle had absolutely no motive to shoot Grant. He didn’t know Grant and had never interacted with Grant before. Of great significance in the court’s ruling is that Mehserle announced he was going to Tase Grant. This statement was corroborated by Pirone and (Grant’s friend) Jackie Bryson. Mehserle stood to gain distance, which would be required for the shooting of a Taser to be effective. It would not have been required to fire a gun. Mehserle fired once, which is consistent with shooting a Taser and inconsistent with firearm training, which says if you’re going to shoot, you shoot more than once — you double or triple tap is the phrase used. Mehserle pulled on his service revolver in a manner suggestive of trying to pull out a Taser. He was pushing in. It took him several efforts to pull the gun. After the shooting his hands immediately went to his head in obvious shock and surprise. This is again inconsistent with an intention to shoot. (Grant’s friend Carlos) Reyes heard Mehserle say, “Oh, s—. Oh, s—. I shot him.” Again, further evidence that this was an unintentional shooting.

AFP/Getty Images

Perry said Mehserle had been justified in using a Taser on Grant because, he said, Grant was not complying with the officer’s effort to handcuff him. Prosecutors had argued that using any weapon on Grant was excessive because he was unarmed and on his chest, pinned under two officers.

Mr. Grant was resisting. I make that statement based on the video evidence and the autopsy evidence, which shows the shot entered on Grant’s side indicating he was rolling in an upward manner … Grant held his hand under his body with such force that a prosecution witness observing from the train remarked to a friend that Grant must be very strong.

Perry said he gave “little weight” to one of the prosecution’s prime arguments — that if Mehserle had killed Grant accidentally, he would have said as much to one of his colleagues:

Much has been made by the district attorney that Mehserle did not say it was an accident and that he told Pirone he thought Grant was going for a gun immediately after the shooting. It is argued that Mehserle was intentionally lying to cover up his crime. It is further argued that Mehserle’s failure to tell his support officer hours after the shooting that it was an accident is further evidence that he intended to shoot Grant. Based on my review of the evidence, I reject these arguments. It is clear from the video that immediately following the shooting, Mehserle acted in an obvious physical manner that can only be characterized as shock and dismay. His hands went to his head in apparent disbelief of what had happened. I accept his testimony that he did not know how he had come to have shot Grant and that he was in shock following the shooting. In the court’s experience, individuals react differently to stress. I place little weight on Mehserle’s statements immediately following the event.

Perry agreed with the defense that the atmosphere at Fruitvale Station was chaotic. Prosecutors had argued that Mehserle’s colleagues had exaggerated the situation while on the witness stand:

The noise on the platform was extraordinarily loud and the situation was a near riot when Mehserle came on the scene.

Finally, Perry concluded that “no reasonable trier of fact” could have found the shooting was intentional. It was a strong statement. Although they did not hear all the evidence, two Alameda County judges said last year that the Taser story was made up, one after a bail hearing and one after a preliminary hearing:

Having considered all the evidence and weighed it in a light in favor of finding the allegation to be true, the court finds that no reasonable trier of fact could have concluded that Mehserle intended to fire his gun. … The evidence that Mehserle intentionally used his firearm was so clearly insufficient that the gun enhancement allegation should be dismissed.

Douglas County sheriff

As he decided whether to give Mehserle two, three or four years for involuntary manslaughter, Perry found a number of reasons to choose the low term. He referred to a fight on a train that Grant had been in before his arrest and to Pirone’s aggressive detainment of Grant and four friends before the shooting:

Many persons contributed to the tragedy that occurred in this case. The persons who fought on the train. Had there been no fight, I doubt that we would be here. (Grant’s friend Michael) Greer got back on the train and disobeyed Pirone. Pirone’s coarse and aggressive conduct as to Greer and the other detainees incited the crowd. The members of the crowd added to the tension of the situation by creating a near riot. All of this occurred before Mehserle even came to the scene. All of these people share some responsibility for setting the stage for this tragedy. BART contributed as well by setting Mehserle up for failure due to inadequate Taser training.

Perry said he was mindful of concerns by law enforcement that a prison sentence for Mehserle could send a “negative message to officers who daily risk their lives to protect law-abiding citizens.” But he went on:

The court is aware of all mitigating circumstances in this case. Mehserle is not an aggressive person. No prior record. Good work history. Loving and supportive family. No likelihood of reoffending. I accept all these reasons. The district attorney claims there was no remorse. I see tons of remorse in this case. But when I consider sentencing as the probation department has observed, I must remember that a young man needlessly died. I believe prison is appropriate.

Finally, Perry wrapped up his remarks with another nod to the intense feelings the case had provoked:

We started this case with me saying I did not volunteer for this assignment. I did the best I could with this case. I well understand my decisions today will not be well received by many people and I’m sorry for that, but all I can say is I did my best.

Black, Latino & Asian Caucus Urges Gov. Paterson to Sign Stop & Frisk Database Bill « News from Melissa Mark-Viverito

The Black, Latino & Asian Caucus has sent a letter to Governor Paterson, urging him to sign legislation approved by the Senate and Assembly which would prohibit police from entering the information of New Yorkers that have been stopped and frisked into a database if they are not arrested or ticketed.

Currently, after completing a stop and frisk, police have the authority to enter each individual’s name and information into its database, even when they are not found to be in violation of any law.  This practice raises serious civil liberties concerns.

The city’s stop and frisk policy has been found to be highly discriminatory against people of color, with blacks and Latinos making up 80% of those targeted. Studies have also indicated that nearly 90% of those stopped are not found to be in violation of any law.

The letter can be read below.  If you cannot view the letter, please click here.

Paterson To Sign Stop-And-Frisk Legislation

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Governor David Paterson is expected to sign legislation later this morning making major changes to the so called stop and frisk database, sources tell NY1.

The new law will prevent police from maintaining a database on people who are stopped and not charged with a crime.

For instance, it will keep police from compiling a list of people they stop and frisk that fit the description of a crime that has just been committed — if there are no supporting witnesses.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly are among the most vocal opponents of the legislation. Both have urged the governor to veto it.

State lawmakers who helped pass the bill say they wanted to do away with the database because it focused on minority neighborhoods.

NY1 will carry the bill signing live beginning at 10 a.m.

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• 6/30/2010 State Assembly Signs Off On Bill Limiting Stop And Frisk Records
  
• 6/24/2010 State Senate Bill Would Clear Stop And Frisk Database
  
• 5/24/2010 State Lawmakers Introduce Bill To Curtail Stop-And-Frisk Database
  
• 5/19/2010 NYCLU Files Lawsuit Against City’s Stop-And-Frisk Database
  

Mayor Bloomberg, cops fume as gov purges frisk list

Gov. Paterson today is expected to sign a controversial bill that would delete an NYPD database with the names of hundreds of thousands of people who were stopped and frisked but never arrested, sources said.

The measure — reviled by law enforcement and Mayor Bloomberg — has been strongly favored by minority lawmakers in the state Legislature.

This week, all five Democratic candidates for attorney general called on Paterson to sign the bill to nix portions of the “250 database,” so called because of the number on the form filed to the database.

Three sources told The Post last night that the governor was expected to sign the bill this morning at a planned event in Manhattan.

“Albany has robbed us of a great crime-fighting tool, one that saved lives,” Commissioner Ray Kelly fumed.

“Without it, there will be, inevitably, killers and other criminals who won’t be captured as quickly or perhaps ever. They’ll be free to threaten our neighborhoods longer than they would have been otherwise.”

While some 12 percent of stop-and-frisks wind up with an arrest or summons, Kelly insisted the database has been invaluable in crime-fighting.

That info has been important in identifying suspects in 178 criminal cases — including 17 murders — over the last 18 months, he said.

The mayor’s spokesman, Stu Loeser, added, “We’re disappointed that police officers will be denied an important tool they have been using to solve crimes and prevent others.”

Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries and state Sen. Eric Adams, both Brooklyn Democrats, sponsored legislation to erase certain information in the database from the police stops.

The bill would prohibit police from storing personal information — such as name, Social Security number and address — of individuals stopped by the police and released without further legal action.

But the database would still include a record of the stop, including the person’s age and race and the place and reason for the stop.

Adams — a former NYPD captain — has argued the “stop, question, and frisk” form “began to be abused” during the Giuliani administration and “the current NYPD administration has taken the misuse to another level.”

Since the bill’s introduction, the issue has been a lightning rod for controversy, with the New York Civil Liberties Union denouncing the stop-and-frisk policy as targeting blacks and Latinos — and the database as an invasion of privacy.

The group contends that in Brownsville, Brooklyn, “which has one of the city’s highest stop-and-frisk rates,” 99 percent of 52,000 police stops since 2004 targeted blacks.

It claims less than 1 percent ended in an arrest.

“That is an unbelievably poor yield rate for such an intrusive, wasteful and humiliating tactic,” the group charged.

The ‘ex’ file

What bill would do:
* Prohibit NYPD from maintaining personal information in database on those stopped and frisked by police but not arrested. Currently, info is maintained in perpetuity.

How many names in database:
* 2.9 million forms filed in database since 2004, though that number may includes multiple filings on a single name

How many stop-and-frisks in 2009:
* More than 500,000

How many arrested:
* 12 percent arrested or issued summons; 88 percent let go

Additional reporting by Matthew Nestel and Sally Goldenberg

fredric.dicker@nypost.com

Woman Was Tackled By Officers At Hospital In 2005

POSTED: Tuesday, June 8, 2010

UPDATED: 8:56 pm EDT June 8, 2010

Melanie Williams is seen in surveillance video being escorted out of St. Vincent’s Medical Center by officers.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A settlement has been reached in the case of a pregnant woman tackled by police inside St. Vincent’s Medical Center five years ago.Surveillance video showed Melanie Williams running into the emergency room looking for help because she was in premature labor, bleeding and sick.

Police followed her inside and arrested her, as seen on the video.Williams sued those officers, and both sides reached a deal outside of federal court Tuesday for Williams to receive $65,000.

Videos: Woman Accepts Settlement From City
Hear 911 Calls In Police Assault Case

Just before the incident happened, Williams called 911 because she was bleeding.

“I need some help … because I am pregnant. I’m bleeding and I feel like I am going to faint,” Williams told a dispatcher.

Melanie Williams

Dispatchers lost that call, so Williams ended up driving herself to the hospital. Police reports say she was reckless and ran a red light, so an officer pulled her over.

She told police she was sick and sped off, according to the police reports. Police then followed her to the hospital.”They knocked her down, had his foot on her back and her neck and all this type of stuff,” Williams’ sister said at the time. “She was yelling, ‘I’m pregnant. Someone help me. I am bleeding.’ They took her back out of the emergency room and back out into the police squad car.”

Williams gave birth prematurely to her daughter, Malaysia, 10 days later, and both are fine now, she said.The lawsuit originally involved excessive force by the officers, but that was dropped. The settlement was something both sides agreed to, and Williams’ attorney said he thinks it’s fair.

There was also an internal review by police of the incident, and the officers involved were disciplined.

Previous Stories:

• October 7, 2005: Mother Who Gave Birth To Premature Baby To Sue Police

Torture probe expands to cops under his command

BY CAROL MARIN AND DON MOSELEY | SUN-TIMES/NBC CHICAGO

Former Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge faces trial next month on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice linked to police brutality.(AP)

A new federal grand jury has been impaneled to expand the investigation of allegations of police torture under former Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge, the Chicago Sun-Times and NBC5 News have learned.

The grand jury is investigating what was commonly referred to as the “Midnight Crew,” officers who worked for Burge, according to a source.

This comes as federal prosecutors ready their case against Burge. The aging detective commander is set to go on trial May 6, charged with perjury and obstruction of justice.

None of the officers under Burge’s command has ever been charged in connection with the torture allegations. The new grand jury may decide whether that time has finally come.

Burge and his detectives have always maintained they mistreated no one.

Former Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge faces trial next month on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice linked to police brutality. (AP)

But according to attorney Flint Taylor, Burge was the ringleader of a band of seven or eight officers that operated out of Area 2 in the 1970s and ’80s.

They were called the “Midnight Crew” because of the hours they worked.

“Under the cover of darkness and the fact that there were relatively few of them, they could do what other detectives felt they couldn’t get away with, and that is torture people,” Taylor said. “And you just have case after case under them of baggings, of electric shock, of mock executions in the ’80s which was the heyday of the Midnight Crew.” (more…)

Tags: Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge, Edward Egan, Flint Taylor, Grand Jury, John Byrne, Midnight Crew, Patrick Fitzgerald, Richard Beuke, Robert Boyle