A Brooklyn cop has been accused
of violating NYPD guidelines after hitting a suspect in the head with a baton
during a 2012 arrest.
The Daily News reports that a
prosecutor with the city's Civilian Complaint Review Board has accused NYPD
Officer Keith Dsouza of using potentially "deadly physical force"
against Ryan Scails on July 4th, 2012. Scails, then a 24-year-old arts student,
was arrested by Officer Dsouza and his partner, Officer Fernando Lopes, after
he was allegedly seen urinating on a building in Red Hook.
Officer Dsouza claims he
"never touched" Scails's head with his baton during the arrest, and a
surveillance video of the arrest neither confirms nor denies Dsouza's
assertion. But Scails filed a CCRB complaint soon afterward, and at yesterday's
disciplinary trial, prosecutor Heather Cook sided with Scails. "“There was
never a deadly physical force threat to these officers — never,” she said
yesterday. “[Dsouza] hit him in the head, and he knew he wasn’t supposed to him
in the head. He got in more than one whack on his head.”
Scails says that on the night
of the arrest, he had been drinking with friends in Prospect Heights and went
to a bar in Red Hook. On his way home to Park Slope, he stopped to relieve
himself and was arrested. "I felt violated,” he said. “I still do." A
spokesperson with the CCRB tells us Dsouza faces the loss of a week's pay; the
Police Commissioner will determine his final punishment.
The NYPD's use of force has
been under scrutiny since Staten Island man Eric Garner died after being put in
a chokehold by a cop earlier this month. Police Commissioner Bill Bratton has
promised to put cops through extensive retraining, though he says the NYPD will
continue to make arrests for lesser crimes as part of Bratton's "broken
windows" policing policy.
