By Bill Parry
A Queens judge now possesses what he thinks he needs in his lawsuit against the city, the NYPD and Queens District Attorney Richard Brown: two pieces of visual evidence.
State Supreme Court Judge Thomas Raffaele presented two cellphone videos at a media gathering on the steps of the Queens County Courthouse last week showing that he was attacked by an unidentified police officer during an incident in Jackson Heights June 1, 2012.
Officers from the 115th Precinct were arresting a suspect at the plaza, at 74th Street and 37th Road, when a crowd of 50 to 100 people gathered and began protesting what the judge viewed as excessive force.
“I called the precinct for backup because the crowd was getting agitated,” Raffaele recalled. “One officer was smashing his knee into the back of the handcuffed suspect.”
The judge said he then tried to help with crowd control when one officer went into the crowd.
“He started cursing and shoving people and that’s when he hit me with a karate chop to the throat so hard that it hurt for a week,” he said.
Raffaele, a resident of Jackson Heights, was taken to the hospital but not before complaining to a sergeant.
“He said he’d look into it, but by that time the officer was gone and the sergeant said he didn’t know who I was talking about.”
At Elmhurst Hospital, the judge claims he was repeatedly dismissed by officers when he said he wanted to file a complaint. When he was finally interviewed by the Queens district attorney’s office two months later, it was determined that no criminal charges would be filed because of lack of evidence. The judge accused the DA of whitewashing its investigation of the incident.
Raffaele recently acquired two cellphone videos from anonymous sources who he says refute the NYPD’s claim that he was acting too aggressively and injured his larynx by shouting too loudly.
“The videos will prove that all that is untrue,” said Raffaele during the news conference. “They’re supposed to tell the truth and protect the truth and instead they’ve lied.”
The judge filed the federal lawsuit in August 2012, he said, “because what I really want is to clean up the situation so people can trust them again.”
He added, “The police are supposed to protect the people. We have to change the culture.”
While Raffaele believes the two videos will help him do that, the Queens DA’s office reacted to his distribution of DVDs to the assembled media.
“The city has yet to receive a copy of the tape(s), although the plaintiff shared it in advance with the media,” said Elizabeth Thomas, deputy director of communications. “We’re always open to evaluating new evidence, in particular, if the plaintiffs provide it to the city expeditiously before leaking it to the press. It is troubling that a plaintiff alleging a ‘cover-up’ has thus far failed to disclose evidence to the Queens DA, the NYPD and the Law Department.”
A review by the Civilian Complaint Review Board is expected after the first of December.
Reach reporter Bill Parry by e-mail at bparry@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4538.
