Update: Key Figures Testify in Police Assault Case

[User]

Grand jurors investigating a 24-year-old man's claims that police officers beat and sodomized him with a hand-held object in a Brooklyn subway station last month heard from two key witnesses on Thursday: the man himself and a police officer present during the encounter.

The testimony by the two men -- Michael Mineo, who has accused four officers of brutalizing him on Oct. 15, and the 26-year-old officer whose account is said to bolster aspects of Mr. Mineo's claims -- came 10 days after the grand jury was impaneled.

Mr. Mineo entered the court building where the grand jury is meeting at 12:30 p.m. and left at 2 p.m. The transit officer arrived later and left without being seen by reporters.

Neither Mr. Mineo nor Paul Martin, a lawyer for the transit officer, would discuss the testimony in detail.

Mr. Martin did say, however, that it had taken time for what his client saw that day to sink in.

"I think he saw an incident take place, but the nature of exactly what took place he didn't piece together until he read it in the newspapers," Mr. Martin said. The transit officer's account did not surface until two weeks after the encounter.

Mr. Martin said his client -- a Long Islander who has been assigned to the department's Transit Bureau for two years -- did nothing illegal, committed no police misconduct, and testified voluntarily after waiving any immunity.

"He was professional," Mr. Martin said in describing his client's testimony. "He answered all the questions put forth to him; he was respectful, clear, concise, and in my estimation he was truthful."

Stephen C. Jackson and Kevin L. Mosley, the lawyers who are representing Mr. Mineo, have said that the officers chased him and tackled him and that three of them held him down while a fourth shoved a piece of equipment into his rectum, possibly a retractable baton or a police radio antenna.

A person familiar with the investigation said that the transit officer had told people that he arrived at the end of Mr. Mineo's encounter with the other officers and that he saw one of the officers' collapsible batons near Mr. Mineo's buttocks.

Though Mr. Mineo declined to speak about his testimony in detail, he did describe the discomfort he has suffered as a result of the encounter for the first time.

"I know that those cops are going to be brought to justice," said Mr. Mineo, who was leaning on a brown wooden cane and was flanked by his lawyers as he spoke.

"At first I felt like people weren't believing me," he said. "Now that things are coming to the light, I feel a little bit more better."

Mr. Mineo, who was wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt and low-hanging jeans, said that since the encounter he has been unable to sit down, and that he sleeps little and feels jumpy whenever he sees police vehicles. As a result, he stays in his apartment, he said.

"There's a lot of things I shouldn't be going through at this age," said Mr. Mineo, who works as a body piercer at a Brooklyn tattoo parlor.

The officers had pursued Mr. Mineo because they thought he was smoking marijuana, but they found no drugs and let him go with a disorderly conduct summons. Mr. Mineo ended up in a hospital with injuries, including a tear to his rectum that one law enforcement official said was both external and internal.



News Hawk: User: http://www.420magazine.com/
Source: New York Times (NY)
Page: A29
Copyright: 2008 The New York Times Company
Contact: letters@nytimes.com
Website: The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia

[Soniq420]

Thanks for the case update, looks pretty bad for the cops; who better invest in steel chastity belts before they head for prison.

There are some things in the joint larger than collapsable batons

[pvphoenix]

This makes me sick.