Friends:

Thanks to those of you who came to newburgh last night to view the video of the September 30, 2007 police misconduct and participate in the discussion which followed.

For those of you who came, today's article on page 3 of the TH-Record must have come as a bit of a shock: after you watched a police officer [Rose] choke and pummel a handcuffed detainee [Carlson] in the booking room and then about ten minutes later again assault him physically, throw him the floor of the booking room and, with three other officers, drag him out of the booking room and to the cell block, the account in today's newspaper deviated from reality. those of you who heard me read the police's "primary narrative" of this incident know that carlson did not start attacking any police officer when his handcuffs were removed, but, rather, walked behind rose to the sink area of the booking room.

You also know that Mr. Fahey was not violently kicking or destroying or attempting to destroy anything in the booking room when he was isolated in the "fishbowl" area of the police station and that the police report again lies when it makes that claim.

Likewise, at the Citgo station, you saw a police Lieutenant turn on Mr. Fahey and push him violently to the ground. The Lieutenant's testimony that Fahey "violently lunged" toward him before he attacked fahey is a lie and the video, in real time, shows that. The video also shows police officers throwing Fahey from place to place and one officer taking a bucket of dirty gas station water and clearing Fahey's blood from the pavement.

For those of you who did not come, I intend to hold another showing of this video at what may be a more convenient time.

Why? One instance often typifies so much. Sometimes, we make too much of something. But, sometimes, we make too little of something. In this case, at our public hearings last September, we heard - over and again - that the Newburgh PD has no regard for what is true and no regard for the civil rights and dignity of people. The tape we have offers a very plain demonstration of this, not the isolated action of one officer, but the condoned behavior of several, including a Lieutenant [Leach], who was in charge of the department during the relevant shift.

That the Police Chief claims the tape exonerates his officers is shocking. That the City Council, the City Manager and the Corporation Counsel collectively have done nothing about this and numerous other incidents substantially, indeed markedly, compounds the problem residents of Newburgh face.

There is still no civilian complaint review board in Newburgh; there are still no cameras in the police cars to improve accountability. There is still a huge credibility gap between the police agency and many of the city's residents.

The Democratic Alliance cannot and will not rest until these matters are positively addressed. As always, i thank you for your participation and support.

Our next meeting is Monday, May 12 at 7:30PM at the Goshen Inn.

Michael Sussman, Convener

ON SATURDAY MAY 3, 2008, AT 6:00 P.M., THE DEMOCATIC ALLIANCE AND ATTORNEY MICHAEL SUSSMAN WILL SHOW VIDEO RECORDINGS RELATED TO THE SEPTEMBER 30, 2007 INCIDENT AT THE CITGO SERVICE STATION IN NEWBURGH. THE VIDEO AND THE ABSENCE OF MUNICIPAL RESPONSE HAVE FUELED CALLS FOR THE TERMINATION OF THE CITY'S POLICE CHIEF AND PROSECUTION OF THOSE POLICE OFFICERS WHO ASSAULTED CIVILIANS BOTH ON BROADWAY AND IN THE BOOKING ROOM THAT EARLY MORNING. TO DATE, THERE HAS BEEN NO KNOWN MUNICIPAL RESPONSE TO THE OUTRAGEOUS BEHAVIOR WITNESSED ON THE VIDEO.

OTHER INFORMATION RELATING TO THE TRIAL WHICH ENDED LAST THURSDAY WITH THE ACQUITTAL OF THREE DEFENDANTS ON 9 OF 11 CHARGES WILL BE SHARED. MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC WITH INFORMATION CONCERNING LIKE INSTANCES ARE INVITED TO SHARE THEIR ACCOUNTS.

THE VIDEOS AND SUBSEQUENT FORUM WILL BE HELD AT ST. MARY'S CHURCH ON SOUTH STREET IN NEWBURGH ON MAY 3, 2008 AT 6 PM.

THE PUBLIC IS INVITED AND THE EVENT IS FREE OF CHARGE

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CALL 294-3991 [845].

MICHAEL SUSSMAN, CONVENOR, ORANGE COUNTY DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE

PRESS RELEASE
SUSSMAN & WATKINS LAW OFFICES - 4/18/08

On Thursday, April 17, 2008, Judge Peter Kulkin announced his verdict in the cases of People v. Michael Tompkins, People v. Benjamin Fahey and People v. Jesse Carlson. The verdict followed a seven day trial in Newburgh City Court. Before announcing his verdict, the Judge stated that in twenty years of experience with the Newburgh City Court, the Court had never seen a trial so well attended by the public. The Judge also then stated that in his years practicing law and as a Judge in Newburgh, he had never had a case where so many police reports were prepared and the police who wrote those reports either contradicted them from the witness stand or distanced themselves from their content.

The Judge then proceeded to find Mr. Tompkins not guilty of disorderly conduct, not guilty of Criminal Mischief [intentional], guilty of Criminal Mischief [reckless]; he then found Mr. Fahey not guilty of disorderly conduct, obstructing governmental administration, resisting arrest and harassment second degree. He then found Mr. Carlson not guilty of harassment second, obstructing government administration, resisting arrest and guilty of possession of a very small quantity of marihuana [a violation].

The Court then sentenced Mr. Carlson to a surcharge of $95 and gave Mr. Tompkins an "unconditional release" and fined him a total of $160. In so proceeding, the Court rejected the District Attorney's sentencing recommendation - 90 days in Orange County jail for Mr. Tompkins.

Background

At about 1:25 am pn September 30, 2007, a van pulled into a Citgo Station on Broadway in Newburgh. The six occupants, all Caucasian males, lived in the City of Newburgh, within blocks from the gas station. Four occupants of the van went into the store and, as witnessed on store surveillance cameras, bought beer, popcorn and potato chips. The event was entirely uneventful and the store clerk testified that the men caused no diusturbance. This contradicted contrary police reports and testimony by police officers.

As the transaction was ending, police cruisers begain arriving on the scene. The police demanded that the men move their van from the front of the Citgo convenience store. The men refused to move the vehicle because, as they explained to the police, they feared this act would cause the police to arrest the driver for DWI. The police continued to insist that the men move the van. The men refused.

In this context, Police Officer MacGuire grabbed Mr. Tompkins and placed him in his police cruiser. The prosecution contended that Mr. Tompkins had engaged in disorderly conduct causing his arrest. The Judge rejected that charge. Once in the cruiser, Mr. Tompkins witnessed Lt. Peter Leach, the shift commander, approach and brutally shove to the ground a second van occupant, Ben Fahey. The Lt. testified at trial that he so acted because Fahey had "violently lunged" toward him. The surveillance tape entirely belied this testimony and records Lt. Leach, who is 6'3" tall and then weighed 250 pounds, violently pushing the slight Fahey to the ground with his left forearm and body. Immediately thereafter, four police officers began beating Fahey. As these events proceeded, Tompkins began banging his head on the rear driver side of the police vehicle. As the Judge found in sentencing Tompkins, this act was plainly prompted by Tompkin's outrage at the site of the police brtualizing Mr. Fahey.

After having taken Mr. Tompkins and Mr. Fahey into custody, the police found that Jesse Carlson, then 19 years of age, was asleep in the third row of seats in the van. Lt. Leach shook Carlson and awakened him. Several police witnesses gave contradictory accounts of what happened next. Leach claimed that Carlson threw a roundhouse punch which barely missed him. One eyewitness, PO Michael Soldano, contradicted this account, claiming that Carlson started a movement which looked like a punch, but stopped that movement well short of Mr. Leach. In any event, the video shows Carlson being thrown out of the van and pummelled by the police on the driver side of the van.

Despite my objection that it was legally irrelevant to determining whether any of these three defendants violated the criminal law, the People insisted on introducing video tapes from the City of Newburgh PD's booking room and holding cells. While the People claimed that this testimony would bolster their claim that defendants were acting in an out of control manner, in fact, it shockingly revealed that the police had engaged in systematic mistreatment of Mr. Carlson and had filed perjurious reports concerning their own conduct and that of the defendants.

The booking room video reveals that starting at about 1:50 a.m., Mr. Carlson was spitting blood from his mouth, the result of the beating he took at the Citgo station. Rather than providing him any medical attention, Police Office Joseph Rose seated seated Carlson on a bench, cuffed behind his back. PO Rose is seen on the tape approaching Carlson and then choking him violently [as the detainee is cuffed] and throwing the detainee to the ground in a heap. No provocation for this blatant violence is evident on the tape. short time later, Mr. Carlson is uncuffed and walks behind PO Rose to the sink. The primary narrative, a required police report here written by PO Soldano, states that upon being uncuffed, Mr. Carlson began fighting with POs Rose and Accumpora. The video shows that this statement is a blatant lie. No such event occurred. Instead, about five minutes after being uncuffed and while standing in the middle of the booking room, PO Rose again violently attacked Mr. Carlson without provocation. A few seconds later, the video shows four officers dragging a prone Mr. Carlson along the floor to a holding cell. The Lt. Leach, is seen approvingly supervising the administration of this excessive force.

The introduction of this testimony demonstrated the perjurious nature of the testimony by the police officers involved in this situation, particularly POs Rose, Soldano and Lt. Leach.

During the trial, other shocking matters surfaced. The Assistant District Attorney introduced a statement by an alleged witness despite the fact that the witness himself testiifed that the statement did not reflect what he had witnessed. He testified that he signed the statement because of his fear of the police and his need for their protection. The evidence also showed that the Assistant District Attorney "rewrote" a first draft of this supporting deposition initially prepared for this witness' signature and then included in the re-draft a critical sentence which the witness had crossed off upon his review of the first draft.

At the conclusion of the trial, the Polcie Chief of the City of Newburgh stormed from the courtroom, slammed a door leading into the police station and issued a statement attacking Judge Kulkin.

I am today calling for the resignation or dismissal of the police chief. His department is out of control. His officers obviously believe they will not be held to account for blatant mistreatment of detainees. How else can one explain the behavior of officers, in a surveilled booking room, beating a detainee without cause? The police chief has not sought to clean up this police department. Rather with the assistance of a shameful District Attorney's office, he has continued to perpetuate intentional abuses of civil and constitutional rights.

Michael H. Sussman (845)-294-3991

TASERS FOUND TO CAUSE LETHAL HEART RHYTHM
EVEN MINUTES AFTER WEAPON'S DISCHARGE

   

IMPROVING THE NEWBURGH POLICE DEPARTMENT:
A REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS BY THE
DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE

I. Framing the issue

In October 2006, a young man was shot and killed by the Newburgh Police.  No publicly released investigation has revealed the facts to the community.  In the winter and the spring 2007, two men allegedly hung themselves in the City of Newburgh lockup, which is adminis-tered by the City of  Newburgh Police Department.  Again, no public report explained how this  happened in a closely monitored lock-up adjacent to the police department.  In early July 2007, a fourth man died at St. Luke's Hospital hours after an apparent altercation involving eight or nine police officers and a police dog.  An autopsy completed by an independent medical examiner found that this man died from a combination of blunt force injury, dog bites and multiple tasers.

Following this latest death, the NAACP, the Black Ministerial Fellowship and the Orange County Democratic Alliance agreed to convene three public hearings and to invite the community to attend and present accounts of interaction with the City of Newburgh Police Department. The meetings were publicly advertised and open to members of the City Council, the City’s administration and its police department.  About 170 people  attended the three hearings, which were held at the Baptist Temple Church on South William Street and the mosque on Washington Terrace.  To our knowledge, with the exception of some members of the recently formed police-community advisory board, no other city officials or members of the police department attended the hearings.

II. Summary of Hearings

Fifty five people spoke at the three hearings.  Nearly all speakers were African-American residents of the City of Newburgh. The overwhelming majority of speakers expressed substantial dissatisfaction with the conduct of City of Newburgh police officers  with whom they had contact.  Some speakers related personal experiences or direct observations.  Others reacted and spoke more generally about the relations between community and police department.

III. Findings

 1.  African-Americans often believe that police officers, who are overwhelmingly Caucasian and do not reside in Newburgh, disrespect and devalue them.  This is transmitted through brusque and rude behavior, physical over-response and a lack of trust.

 2.  Speakers related a disturbing pattern - force is used first, pain is inflicted and then questions are asked and investigations conducted.  Put another way, many who testified believe the police are afraid of the community and alienated from it.

3.  Police are rarely seen walking a beat and very little continuity and rapport have been established between minority youth and police officers.  There is a weak relationship between the city's youth and the police department and its members.  There are few, if any, steps being taken to rectify this schism.

4.  When force is used, it is perceived frequently as excessive and unrelated to any actual provocation.  Victims feel that they are being struck, kicked, beaten or maced not because they pose an actual fear, but because police officers are out of control and frightened.  Speakers also indicated that the lack of internal discipline has emboldened disrespect for civilians amongst police officers.

5.  Many speakers stated that they had complained about police abuse at police headquarters. However, none of those who complained to the Internal Affairs Division felt satisfied by the resulting investigation, if any, and many had absolutely no information concerning the outcome of their complaints.  This left most who spoke frustrated and more distrustful of the city's ability to correct its own problems.

6.  Many who attended the hearing expressed concern that city officials  did not attend and have isolated themselves from and ignored the problems of the police department.

IV.  RECOMMENDATIONS

1.  All police vehicles in the City of Newburgh should be equipped promptly with video equipment which can be easily activated.  Departmental protocol should require that the police interact with civilians in a manner which may be captured through the video and the video should be activated during such encounters and reviewed routinely by supervisors.  Currently, the City of Newburgh requires none of this.  We believe that the process of taping such interactions will increase accountability, decrease frivolous and unfounded claims against the police department and allow verification of civilian accounts of police abuse.  This, we believe, will result in a decline in abuse and a decline in tensions.  Likewise, video surveillance should be employed in all holding cells and other areas at the police department where members routinely interact with members of the public.

2.  The City should make a concerted effort to recruit additional African-American and Spanish-speaking police officers.  Simultaneously, the City should adopt tougher educational requirements for police officers.  While several speakers felt that greater outreach for minority officers might not have a significantly positive impact or improve overall relations between the community and the police agency, the vast majority disagreed and felt that having more police officers who shared the background of  a majority of city residence would promote commu-nity-police relations and decrease the very deep alienation which now exists.  All agreed that recruitment and changing the reputation of the police department are inter-related. The department should also provide mandatory diversity training for all law enforcement personnel and staff who regularly interact with the public.

3.  The City Council should seriously consider the adoption and phasing in of a residency requirement which would compel new members of the Police Department to reside in the City of Newburgh. Residency incentives might also be utilized, including the use of available city-owned housing stock to increase the supply of affordable housing for municipal workers, including police officers.  The Federal Officer Next Door program could serve as a model.  

4.  The Police Chief should implement the community policing model which has worked successfully in other urban areas.   The city should be divided into new and smaller units or patrol sectors and the same complement of officers should be assigned foot and auto patrol in each area.  This, it is hoped, will increase familiarity and trust between police officers and civilians.  Likewise, diversity in assignments should include beefed up youth officer corps,  officers assigned to a domestic violence unit and community resource officers.

5.  The City Council should adopt a local law establishing a Civilian Complaint Review Board independent of the department.  Contrary to public statements by the Police Chief and the Mayor, the City does not now have a civilian review board of any  kind, let alone one with the jurisdiction, authority, resources and  power to investigate claims of police abuse and/or misconduct.  About ten cities in New York State, including New York City, have such boards and their experience supports our belief that the presence of such a board can and will improve accountability and introduce greater objectivity and urgency to the investigation of civilian complaints.

6.  In all cases of serious injury or death arising from civilian  interaction with members of the city police department, the Police Department should require mandatory drug and alcohol testing of all officers involved.

7.  In all cases of serious injury or death arising from civilian interaction with members of the  city’s police department, the Orange County District Attorney should recuse himself and request the appointment  by the Governor of a special prosecutor to investigate the police conduct and make sound prosecutorial decisions.  This recommendation is based not on the specific identity of  the current district attorney or any critique specific to him.  Rather,  we recognize that district attorneys’ offices depend for their cases on forging and maintaining close working relationships with local police agencies.  This necessity inevitably and necessarily deters the kind of scrutiny of police/civilian interaction which we believe must occur to restore public confidence in the police department.

8.  The police chief should hold monthly meetings open to the community to facilitate ongoing community and to strengthen community/police ties.

We will share these recommendations with current members of the City Council, the City Manager, Police Chief, District Attorney and the press.  We are available to discuss these recommendations with anyone in the City of Newburgh [or beyond] interested in reforming and improving the police department.  We believe these issues are of  critical public importance.  Continued strain in community/police relations is not healthy for the city or its citizens.  In several recent cases, very serious crimes have occurred without public response.  Too many  members of the public are fearful to initiate contact with members of the police department and this retards law enforcement. 

We urge the serious study of each of our recommendations for the good of the community and believe their adoption will substantially improve the climate in the City of Newburgh..

Michael H. Sussman, Esq., Convener, Democratic Alliance

Civilian review board in pipeline
By Keith Goldberg • Times Herald-Record • February 12, 2008