Assault of Abner Louima

Last updated

Abner Louima
Abner Louima 2000.jpg
Louima in 2000
Born (1966-11-24) November 24, 1966 (age 58)
Thomassin, Haiti
NationalityHaitian
American
Alma materEcole Nationale des Arts Métiers
Occupations
  • Electrical engineer
  • security guard
  • activist
OrganizationAbner Louima Foundation
Known for1997 police brutality victim

Abner Louima (born November 24, 1966 [1] ) is a Haitian American man who, in 1997, was physically attacked, brutalized, and raped by officers of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) after he was arrested outside a Brooklyn nightclub. His injuries were so severe that he required three major surgeries.

Contents

Officers responsible for the attack were charged and convicted in federal court; Justin Volpe was sentenced to 30 years in prison with no possibility of parole, although he was released from his sentence early in 2023. In 2001, Louima received a US$8.75 million settlement (equivalent to about $15 million in 2023) in his civil suit against the city for police brutality, the largest civil settlement at that time for such abuse. He has set up the Abner Louima Foundation to establish a hospital and community centers in Haiti, Florida, and New York for Haitian residents, immigrants, and others in need.

Background

Abner Louima was born and raised in the small community of Thomassin, Haiti. In 1991, at the age of 24, Abner immigrated to the United States of America, married, and soon fathered one child. By 1997, Abner and family were living in Brooklyn, New York. He had been trained as an electrical engineer in Haiti, but in New York, he was unable to get a position related to his education. He found a job as a security guard for a water and sewage plant in the Flatlands area of Brooklyn, New York. [2] Before the end of 1997, Abner was a naturalized citizen of the United States of America. [3]

Incident

On the night of August 9, 1997, the police were called and several officers from the 70th Precinct were dispatched to the scene where Abner Louima and other men had been involved in a fight between two women in Club Rendez-Vous, a popular nightclub in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. Police, supporters, and various people all became involved in the fight outside the club. Police officers Justin Volpe, Charles Schwarz, Thomas Bruder, and Thomas Wiese, and others responded to the scene. In the ongoing altercation, Volpe said that Louima had attacked him. Louima was charged with disorderly conduct, obstructing government administration, and resisting arrest. Later, Volpe admitted his accusation about Louima being his assailant was a lie. [4]

On the ride to the station, the arresting officers beat Louima with their fists, nightsticks, and hand-held police radios. [5] On arriving at the station house, they had Louima strip-searched and put in a holding cell. The beating continued later, culminating with Louima being sexually assaulted in a bathroom at the 70th Precinct station house in Brooklyn. Volpe kicked Louima in the testicles, and while Louima's hands were cuffed behind his back, he first grabbed onto and squeezed his testicles and then forced a broken broomstick up his rectum. According to trial testimony, Volpe walked through the precinct holding the bloody, excrement-stained instrument in his hand, bragging to a police sergeant that he "took a man down tonight." [6]

Photo of Louima taken after his beating, used in the criminal trial, as Government Exhibit #82 Louima after the attack.jpg
Photo of Louima taken after his beating, used in the criminal trial, as Government Exhibit #82

Louima's teeth were also badly damaged in the attack when the broom handle was jammed into his mouth. [7] He testified that a second officer in the bathroom helped Volpe in the assault but could not positively identify him. The identity of the second attacker became a point of serious contention during the trial and appeals. Louima also initially claimed that the officers involved in the attack called him a racial slur and shouted, "This is Giuliani-time" during the beating. [8] Louima later recanted that claim. The reversal was used by police defense lawyers to cast doubt on the entirety of his testimony. [9]

The day after the incident, police took Louima to the emergency department at Coney Island Hospital. Escorting officers explained away his serious injuries, saying they were the result of "abnormal homosexual activities." An Emergency Department (ED) nurse, Magalie Laurent, suspecting that Louima's extreme injuries were not the result of consensual sex, notified Louima's family and the Police Department's Internal Affairs Bureau of the likelihood that he had been raped and beaten in custody. [5] Louima suffered severe internal damage to his colon and bladder in the attack, which required three major operations to repair. He was hospitalized for two months after the incident. [4] [9]

Public reaction

Reports of the incident and the severity of Louima's injuries provoked national outrage. On August 29, 1997, an estimated 7,000 demonstrators marched to the New York City Hall and the 70th Precinct station house at 154 Lawrence Avenue where the attack took place. The march was dubbed "Day of Outrage Against Police Brutality and Harassment." [10]

The case was mentioned in the 1998 Amnesty International report on the United States, among several other cases of police brutality, torture, and abuse. [11] Amnesty International also uses the incident as a case study on a treatise in the campaign against torture. [12]

Mike McAlary, a New York Daily News journalist, investigated and reported an exposé of the brutalization of Louima by NYPD officers. He won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary for this reporting. [13]

Criminal trials

Volpe was charged with several counts in federal court of violating Louima's civil rights, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to police; he plead "not guilty". [14] Midway through the trial, Volpe changed his plea to guilty, confessing to having sodomized Louima. Although Louima had suffered several broken teeth, Volpe denied that he ever struck Louima in the mouth with the stick and claimed that he only put it very close to Louima's mouth. Volpe also admitted that he had threatened Louima's life. [15] Volpe was convicted of the charges. On December 13, 1999, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison, without the possibility of parole, as well as a $525 fine and restitution in the amount of $277,495. [16] [17]

Charles Schwarz was convicted on June 27, 2000 for helping Volpe assault Louima in the bathroom, and he was sentenced to 15 years in prison. [18] At the time of his conviction, numerous questions were raised about whether he could receive a fair trial in the highly charged atmosphere. [19] Volpe identified Wiese, not Schwarz, as the second man in the bathroom, in a recorded interview on news show 60 Minutes , a fact not brought up in the trial. The conviction was overturned by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which found that Schwarz was denied a fair trial. [20] However, in 2002, Schwarz pleaded guilty to a perjury charge for testifying that he did not lead Louima to the bathroom, and he was sentenced to five years in prison. His request for leniency was rejected on March 30, 2006. He was released to a halfway house in February 2007, and as of 2019 works in New York City as a carpenter. [21] [22]

Three other NYPD officers (Bruder, Wiese, and Sergeant Michael Bellomo) were indicted for trying to cover up the assault. On March 9, 2000, Wiese and Bruder, along with Schwarz, were convicted on the charge of conspiracy to obstruct a federal investigation into the assault on Louima, but their convictions were reversed by a federal appeals court in February 2002 for insufficient evidence. [23] Bellomo was found not guilty of trying to cover up the beating of Louima and that of another Haitian immigrant by Volpe earlier that evening. [24]

In February 2021, Volpe's request for a COVID-related compassionate release was denied. [25] Nevertheless, he was released from prison early on April 13, 2023. [26] [27]

Jack Smith, then a young assistant United States Attorney, was one of the prosecutors who worked on these cases.

Aftermath

Louima was represented by attorney Sanford Rubenstein in a subsequent civil suit against the City of New York; this was settled for $8.75 million on July 30, 2001, the largest police brutality settlement in New York City history. [28] After legal fees, Louima collected approximately $5.8 million. [29]

In February 2003, Louima visited his family still living in Haiti. [30] There, he discussed setting up the Abner Louima Foundation, a nonprofit organization to raise additional money to build a community center and hospital in Haiti. Louima indicated he had plans to use his own money and donations to open community centers in Haiti, New York, and Florida for Haitians and others seeking legal, financial or other aid. Louima paid the school tuition for 14 poor children in Thomassin, the small community where he grew up. During his visit to Haiti, he met with the President of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a former priest whom Louima knew from his school days. In a rare interview, Louima said he is convinced that he can make a difference in his impoverished homeland: "Maybe God saved my life for a reason, I believe in doing the right thing." [29]

In 2007, Louima was residing in Miami Lakes, Florida. [9] He owns homes in suburban Miami and Port-au-Prince, and several investment properties in Florida. [29]

Louima has since participated in anti-police brutality protests with Al Sharpton, notably over the shooting of Sean Bell in November 2006, and on August 9, 2007, exactly 10 years after his attack. On the latter date, Louima was honored in New York City by the National Action Network (an organization founded by Sharpton), at the House of Justice, for his resolve and for helping others who have suffered from police brutality. [4]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New York City Police Department</span> American municipal police force

The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, is the primary law enforcement agency within New York City. Established on May 23, 1845, the NYPD is the largest, and one of the oldest, municipal police departments in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Serpico</span> American police officer and whistleblower (born 1936)

Francesco Vincent "Frank" Serpico is an American retired New York Police Department detective, best known for whistleblowing on police corruption. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he was a plainclothes police officer working in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan to expose vice racketeering. In 1967, he reported credible evidence of widespread police corruption, to no effect. In 1970, he contributed to a front-page story in The New York Times on widespread corruption in the NYPD, which drew national attention to the problem. Mayor John V. Lindsay appointed a five-member panel to investigate accusations of police corruption, which became the Knapp Commission.

The Raboteau massacre was an incident on April 22, 1994, in which military and paramilitary forces attacked the neighborhood of Raboteau Gonaïves, Haiti, the citizens of which had been participating in pro-Jean-Bertrand Aristide demonstrations. At least 23 residents were killed, though most groups estimated the true casualties to be higher.

The Mollen Commission is formally known as The City of New York Commission to Investigate Allegations of Police Corruption and the Anti-Corruption Procedures of the Police Department. Former judge Milton Mollen was appointed in June 1992 by then New York City mayor David N. Dinkins to investigate corruption in the New York City Police Department. Mollen's mandate was to examine and investigate "the nature and extent of corruption in the Department; evaluate the department's procedures for preventing and detecting that corruption; and recommend changes and improvements to those procedures".

Volpe is an Italian surname, meaning "fox". Notable people with the surname include:

Crime rates in New York City have been recorded since at least the 1800s. The highest crime totals were recorded in the late 1980s and early 1990s as the crack epidemic surged, and then declined continuously from around 1990 throughout the 2000s. As of 2023, New York City has significantly lower rates of gun violence than many other large cities. Its 2022 homicide rate of 6.0 per 100,000 residents compares favorably to the rate in the United States as a whole and to rates in much more violent cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans.

Michael James McAlary was an American journalist and columnist who worked at the New York Daily News for 12 years, beginning with the police beat. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1998 for his columns exposing police brutality against Haitian immigrant Abner Louima.

Human rights in Greece are observed by various organizations. The country is a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, the Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the United Nations Convention Against Torture. The Greek constitution also guarantees fundamental human rights to all Greek citizens.

Ousmane Zongo was a Burkinabé arts trader living in the United States who was shot and killed by Brian Conroy, a New York City Police Department officer during a warehouse raid on May 22, 2003. Zongo was not armed. Conroy did not receive any jail time but was convicted of criminally negligent homicide, received probation, and lost his job as a police officer.

Earl Caldwell is an American journalist. He documented the Black Panthers from the inside in 1969, and became embroiled in a landmark 1972 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court clarifying reporters' rights. The case started when the FBI pressured Caldwell unsuccessfully to be an informant against the Black Panther Party. He worked for The New York Times, the New York Daily News, The New York Amsterdam News and is on the radio in New York City. His career as a journalist spans more than four decades. He witnessed and chronicled some of the most important civil rights events from the 1960s onwards. He was the only reporter present when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Caldwell is a founding member of the steering committee of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, as well as the Washington-based Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. In 2009 he was inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame.

There are cases, both documented and alleged, that involve the usage of torture by members of the United States government, military, law enforcement agencies, intelligence agencies, health care services, and other public organizations both in and out of the country.

On October 15, 2008, Michael Mineo was arrested and allegedly sodomized by New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers in the Prospect Park subway station in Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York. According to Mineo, the arresting police officers pinned him to the ground, while Richard Kern, one of the officers, pulled down Mineo's pants and sodomized him with a police baton. On December 9, 2008, the Brooklyn District Attorney indicted the three arresting officers and charged them with felonies. Kern was charged with aggravated sexual abuse in the first degree, assault in the first degree, and hindering prosecution. Two other officers — Andrew Morales and Alex Cruz — were charged with hindering prosecution and official misconduct. All three officers were tried and found not guilty of all charges.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the New York City Police Department</span>

The New York City Police Department (NYPD) originates in the Government of New York City attempts to control rising crime in early- to mid-19th-century New York City. The City's reforms created a full-time professional police force modeled upon London's Metropolitan Police, itself only formed in 1829. Established in 1845, the Municipal Police replaced the inadequate night watch system which had been in place since the 17th century, when the city was founded by the Dutch as New Amsterdam.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New York City Police Department corruption and misconduct</span> Overview of misconduct and corruption in the NYPD

Throughout the history of the New York City Police Department, numerous instances of corruption, misconduct, and other allegations of such, have occurred. Over 12,000 cases resulted in lawsuit settlements totaling over $400 million during a five-year period ending in 2014. In 2019, misconduct lawsuits cost the taxpayer $68,688,423, a 76 percent increase over the previous year, including about $10 million paid out to two exonerated individuals who had been falsely convicted and imprisoned.

Joseph Gray is a former New York City Police Department officer who killed four pedestrians, on August 4, 2001, while driving drunk in Brooklyn. The event "mushroomed into scandal" when it was discovered that other officers were drinking with Gray in a topless bar and earlier at a precinct parking lot before the incident. Five officers were suspended and five were transferred, including the precinct's commanding officer, executive officer and integrity control officer. The two officers who were on probation at the time were ultimately dismissed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kenneth P. Thompson</span> American lawyer (1966–2016)

Kenneth P. Thompson was an American lawyer who served as the District Attorney of Kings County, New York, from 2014 until his death from cancer on October 9, 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Killing of Eric Garner</span> 2014 police killing of a black man in New York City

On July 17, 2014, Eric Garner, an African American man, was killed in the New York City borough of Staten Island by Daniel Pantaleo, a New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer, after the latter put him in a prohibited chokehold while arresting him. Video footage of the incident generated widespread national attention and raised questions about the use of force by law enforcement.

Akai Gurley, a 28-year-old black man, was fatally shot on November 20, 2014, in Brooklyn, New York City, United States, by a New York City Police Department officer. Two police officers, patrolling stairwells in the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA)'s Louis H. Pink Houses in East New York, Brooklyn, entered a pitch-dark, unlit stairwell. Officer Peter Liang, 27, had his firearm drawn. Gurley and his girlfriend entered the seventh-floor stairwell, fourteen steps below them. Liang fired his weapon; the shot ricocheted off a wall and fatally struck Gurley in the chest. A jury convicted Liang of manslaughter, which a court later reduced to criminally negligent homicide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2014 killings of NYPD officers</span> Murders of two police officers in New York City

On December 20, 2014, Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley shot and killed Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu — two on-duty New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers — in the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. Brinsley then fled into the New York City Subway, where he killed himself. Earlier in the day, before he killed Ramos and Liu, Brinsley had shot and wounded his ex-girlfriend Shaneka Thompson in Baltimore after initially pointing the gun at his own head.

References

  1. ↑ Firth, Robert (2011). Scoundrels. eBookIt.com. ISBN   9781456604165 . Retrieved October 2, 2019.
  2. ↑ Herszenhorn, David M. (August 13, 1997). "Family 7Describes a Readily Friendly Man". The New York Times . Retrieved January 5, 2014.
  3. ↑ Toobin, Jeffrey (June 3, 2002). "The Driver". The New Yorker . Retrieved October 2, 2019.
  4. 1 2 3 Chan, Sewell (August 9, 2007). "The Abner Louima Case, 10 Years Later". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 6, 2014. Retrieved January 5, 2014.
  5. 1 2 Brenner, Marie (December 1997). "Incident in the 70th Precinct". Vanity Fair . Archived from the original on April 13, 2014. Retrieved January 5, 2014.
  6. ↑ Fried, Joseph P. (May 20, 1999). "In Surprise, Witness Says Officer Bragged About Louima Torture". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 14, 2013. Retrieved January 5, 2014.
  7. ↑ "World: Americas Haitian confronts alleged tormentors". BBC News . May 7, 1999. Archived from the original on January 2, 2014. Retrieved January 5, 2014.
  8. ↑ Hinojosa, Maria (August 14, 1997). "NYC officer arrested in alleged sexual attack on suspect". CNN . Archived from the original on January 6, 2014. Retrieved January 5, 2014.
  9. 1 2 3 Dwyer, Jim (June 23, 2002). "No Way Out". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 19, 2014. Retrieved January 5, 2014.
  10. ↑ Tyre, Peg; Karl, Jonathan (August 29, 1997). "Demonstrators in New York protest police brutality". CNN. Associated Press. Archived from the original on January 5, 2007. Retrieved January 5, 2014.
  11. ↑ Amnesty International. 1998."AI Report 1998: United States of America". Amnesty.org. Retrieved December 6, 2006. Archived July 10, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
  12. ↑ Amnesty International. 2000. "Take a Step to Stamp Out Torture". Amnesty.org. Retrieved December 6, 2006. Archived November 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  13. ↑ The Pulitzer Prizes. 1998."The Pulitzer Prize winner, 1998 for Distinguished Commentary". Pulitzer.org. Retrieved December 13, 2006. Archived March 3, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  14. ↑ Grand Jury, United States District Court, Eastern District of New York. 1998."U.S. v. Volpe, et al." Archived May 17, 2008, at the Wayback Machine Grand jury indictment, reproduced on CourtTV.com. Retrieved December 6, 2006.
  15. ↑ Hinojosa, Maria; Tuchman, Gary (December 13, 1999). "30-year sentence for N.Y. policeman in torture of black man". CNN. Associated Press. Archived from the original on September 2, 2008. Retrieved January 5, 2014.
  16. ↑ "NYPD officer jailed for brutality". BBC News. December 13, 1999. Archived from the original on October 9, 2010. Retrieved January 5, 2014.
  17. ↑ Draper, Robert. "Say a Prayer for Justin Volpe; This NYC cop is doing 30 years without parole for what he did with a broomstick in a bathroom. Can you see him as more than a monster? His parents hope so". GQ. p. 19. Archived from the original on January 2, 2014. Retrieved December 11, 2008.
  18. ↑ "NYPD officer jailed for brutality". BBC News. June 27, 2000. Archived from the original on January 2, 2014. Retrieved January 5, 2014.
  19. ↑ Siegel, Nathan (September 13, 2001). "Why Police Officer Charles Schwarz, Convicted in the Abner Louima Case, Deserves a New Trial". FindLaw . Archived from the original on January 2, 2014. Retrieved January 5, 2014.
  20. ↑ Hentoff, Nat (March 19, 2002). "Schwarz: Justice or Technicalities?". Village Voice . Archived from the original on January 3, 2014. Retrieved January 5, 2014.
  21. ↑ Ramirez, Anthony (February 4, 2007). "Officer in Louima Case Returns to State to Finish Sentence". The New York Times. Archived from the original on May 1, 2013. Retrieved January 5, 2014.
  22. ↑ "Louima Cop Back on Public Payroll as a NYCHA Carpenter". December 4, 2019. Archived from the original on November 5, 2020. Retrieved September 7, 2020.
  23. ↑ "Convictions against NY police reversed". BBC News. February 28, 2002. Archived from the original on January 2, 2014. Retrieved January 5, 2014.
  24. ↑ New York City Counsel, Governmental Affairs Division, Committee on Fire and Criminal Justice Services. 2002."Res No. 91A-2002". Retrieved December 6, 2006.
  25. ↑ "Former NYPD cop, convicted of brutal beating in 1997, denied compassionate release". February 9, 2021.
  26. ↑ "Ex-officer convicted in Abner Louima attack released from prison early". ny1.com. Retrieved August 31, 2023.
  27. ↑ "Federal Bureau of Prisons". Bop.gov. Archived from the original on July 22, 2013. Retrieved July 13, 2018.
  28. ↑ "New York pays for police brutality". BBC News. July 13, 2001. Archived from the original on January 4, 2014. Retrieved January 5, 2014.
  29. 1 2 3 "N.Y. police victim changes his pain to hope for Haiti". St. Petersburg Times . Associated Press. February 26, 2003. Archived from the original on January 6, 2014. Retrieved January 5, 2014.
  30. ↑ Wehaitians.com gallery. 2003."Abner Louima, from dirt-poor to a great many times a millionaire and ultra-celebrity", Wehaitians.com. Retrieved December 7, 2006. Archived June 18, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.