Ezekiel Edwards

Abuse of Authority

A story from arraignments of what began as a simple trip to the bodega in the Bronx:

A 19-year old African-American college student with no criminal record --- let's call him John --- is walking to the store with his cousin to buy some soda and chips. It is around midnight on Friday. Police officers approach and ask the two young men if they are drunk. The men shake their heads. The officers seem suspicious, grab them, place them against the wall, handcuff and search them. One officer finds a knife in John's front pocket that John carries around for protection. Despite the illegality of the search, the police arrest John and his cousin, place them in a police car, and drive them to a precinct. While at the precinct, still in handcuffs, the police begin searching John and his cousin again, removing their personal belongings. Both John and his cousin are wearing small earrings in each ear. John's cousin starts getting fidgety, shifting his body around, telling the officer not to take his earrings. Another officer walks in and tells John to stop resisting. John tells the officer that he was not doing anything, and asks rhetorically how he could possibly resist while in handcuffs. The officer, thinking John is talking back to him, walks up to John, grabs his right ear, and rips out his earring, tearing the flesh open. John is brought to a nearby hospital to be treated for a severe laceration. A bandage is wrapped repeatedly around his ear and head to stop the bleeding. He is released back to the precinct, and eventually is taken to arraignments. His cousin has been let go by the police. When I first see John standing in the cell, with his head covered in gauze, I assume he was in a fight on the street. When I read the complaint and see that the case involves an incident with the police, I anticipate that perhaps John refused to be handcuffed, started a skirmish, and was struck in the head. I do not expect to hear that, while in handcuffs in a police precinct, a police officer gratuitously tore his ear apart. When we sit down, I inform John that he is being charged with possession of a weapon and resisting arrest. John sits, looks at me, and nods, still in a state of partial disbelief that he is sitting in jail, at 12:30 a.m., with his ear throbbing in pain, being accused by the People of the State of New York of resisting arrest.

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Posted at 7:00 AM, Feb 09, 2006 in Civil Rights | Criminal Justice
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