New York Daily News – by ROCCO PARASCANDOLA
It took seven years, but Herminio Pizarro finally has some measure of justice after being beaten senseless by a gang of cops in a stationhouse bathroom.
That measure would be $3 million.
A Bronx jury Thursday granted the multimillion-dollar award to the former state correction officer who says he still hasn’t fully recovered from the Aug. 4, 2007, beatdown at the 40th Precinct stationhouse after a confrontation at a street fair.
“They dragged me to the bathroom, two cops, and I said that I didn’t need to use the bathroom,” Pizarro told the Daily News. “There were five cops waiting for me in there. They threw me to the ground. They were kicking me, hitting me, punching me.”
Pizarro had two neck surgeries and lost his construction job.
“I can’t even dance with my lady,” he said.
The jury awarded $2 million for pain and suffering and $1 million in punitive damages, which Pizarro said ends years of stress. But he still wants the NYPD to investigate the officers involved.
“They lied,’’ he said. “They came here under oath and they were lying.”
The NYPD had no comment and wouldn’t say if it conducted an investigation when Pizarro filed his lawsuit in 2008. In court papers, however, police painted Pizarro as the aggressor in the Bronx incident.
They said he whacked Officer William Kelly over the head with a baton stolen from Officer Efrain Morales.
Pizarro was arrested on assault and robbery charges. But all charges were dropped.
“You never see that happen with an assault on a police officer,” said his lawyer, Raymond Gazer. “What does that tell you?”
Pizarro filed a wrongful arrest lawsuit, accusing cops of violating his civil rights and attacking him.
The day of the incident, Pizarro and his girlfriend, Olga Garcia, went to a fair sponsored by the precinct’s community council.
Both he and police agree Pizarro spoke up when officers approached a teenage girl he knows and her boyfriend about a beer bottle tossed near a patrol car. Pizarro said the teen was young and shouldn’t be arrested.
Morales said when he moved to arrest the boyfriend, a crowd gathered, tensions rose and Pizarro grabbed his baton and hit Kelly.
Kelly, who needed three staples to close his head wound, is quoted in the criminal complaint as saying Pizarro admitted to hitting Kelly with the baton. But the cop admitted in court that Pizarro made no such statement.
Gazer said he suspects Kelly was accidentally struck by Morales as Pizarro was being attacked. The baton has never been recovered.
Garcia, 58, said when she tried to help, three cops forced her to the ground and held her down, one sitting on her and exacerbating her longstanding back pain. She was not arrested, but she was a co-plaintiff in the lawsuit and was awarded $500,000.
Gazer said the names of the officers in the patrol car and the bathroom were never determined.
He said the jury determined Morales, the one named defendant in the suit, violated Pizarro’s civil rights by using excessive force and falsely arresting him.
Fay Leoussis, chief of the Tort Division for the Law Department, said the city is “disappointed with the verdict.”
“We are reviewing the record to determine our options going forward,” she said.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bronx/jury-awards-3m-man-beaten-cops-2007-article-1.1887829
There guns need pulled as they were found guilty of assult in a round about way. And well that is becoming the law. You assult a person or your wife they take your guns away. And the police should set the example on the streets. No more guns for them. Then see how fast they become good cops again.
They shouldn’t be given a chance to show they can be “good cops.” They need to work at walmart or the city dump.