'Cruel and Inhumane' Attack
New York - A Haitian immigrant suffered a ``cruel and inhumane'' beating and torture by police officers on the floor of a Brooklyn precinct house bathroom, prosecutors said Tuesday in opening arguments of the trial of five policemen charged in the attack.
But an attorney for one of the officers accused of violating the civil rights of Abner Louima said Louima was lying and had told ``inconsistent stories'' about the alleged assault Aug. 9, 1997, that provoked an outcry against alleged racism and brutality in the ranks of the New York Police Department.
Louima, a security guard, was arrested outside a nightclub after a brawl. He said he was beaten and tortured by four officers, first in a patrol car then in a police precinct house bathroom.
A fifth officer is accused of helping cover up the alleged assault. All five have pleaded not guilty to the charges and are suspended from the force without pay.
``Inside the bathroom, Abner Louima suffered more than a beating. He was tortured. It was cruel and inhumane,'' assistant U.S. attorney Kenneth Thompson told an anonymous jury of eight whites, three Hispanics and one black person at the start of a long-awaited trial. ``But Abner Louima did not call the police. The ones that beat him and tortured him were the police.''
The trial is being held in Brooklyn federal court at a time when tensions over alleged police misconduct are already high in New York City. Four officers were charged with murder in March after unarmed West African immigrant Amadou Diallo was killed in a hail of 41 bullets in February.
Louima, who is black, has said that in the 70th precinct station house bathroom, Officer Charles Schwarz, 33, held him down while Officer Justin Volpe, 26, rammed a wooden stick into his rectum and mouth.
But Volpe's attorney Marvyn Kornberg strongly suggested in his opening statement Tuesday that the severe internal injuries suffered by Louima could have come from consensual sex.
``The injuries sustained were not, I repeat not, inconsistent with consensual insertion of an object in his rectum,'' stated Kornberg. He added that he would present evidence of DNA taken from Louima that came from another man.
Officers Volpe and Schwarz are accused of sexually torturing Louima. They could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted.
Officers Thomas Bruder, 32, and Thomas Wiese, 35, are accused of joining the other two men in beating Louima in a police car on the way to the station house. Sgt. Michael Bellomo, 37, is charged with trying to cover up the alleged assault in the car. All three face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
``This trial is about an escalation of violence,'' Thompson said as he outlined the government's case. He pointed at each of the officers and identified them for the jury. He variously described the alleged assault as being ``unspeakable,'' ''inhumane,'' ``cruel'' and ``humiliating.''
He accused Volpe and Schwarz of dragging the still-handcuffed Louima into the bathroom, repeatedly kicking and beating him and then shoving a broken broom handle stick up his rectum and down his throat.
Thompson said Louima's internal injuries were so severe it took three hours of surgery to repair the damage.
Kornberg, referring to potential dollar damages in a separate civil lawsuit filed by Louima against New York City, said the government's opening argument was ``worth 150 million to 450 million reasons to cut the truth ... in fact to lie.''
The attorney said that one inconsistency in Louima's story was that he had first reported a toilet plunger was used in the attack but then changed it to a wooden stick. Kornberg also told the jury that Louima's charge that he was beaten by police radios would not be substantiated by medical evidence.
May 4, 1999
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