A surveillance videotape showing an unarmed and apparently handcuffed man kicked and then beaten over the head several times with a flashlight by the police was made public by his lawyer on Friday.
The video, from the night of Oct. 20, was released on the day that the man, Luis Mendonca, 20, of Pawtucket, was sentenced in District Court, Providence, for assaulting two Rhode Island School of Design police officers in connection with that incident.
The grainy, black-and-white video shows a group of police officers struggling with Mendonca in a parking lot off Benefit Street on the city’s East Side while he is lying on the ground near a parked car.
It shows the officers dragging Mendonca from under the car and into the center of the parking lot, after he has apparently been restrained. The video then shows another police officer entering the fray, kicking Mendonca and following up with a number of blows to the victim’s head with what his lawyer says is a flashlight.
The video, which has no sound, ends with a visibly limp Mendonca being dragged by police officers up a flight of stairs leading to Benefit Street.
Mendonca’s attorney, Alberto Aponte Cardona, of Central Falls, says that following the beating, his client was rushed to Rhode Island Hospital, required 12 staples to close a gash in the back of his head and was in a coma for nearly three days.
Cardona says that the officer shown repeatedly striking Mendonca is Detective Robert R. DeCarlo, a 15-year veteran who has received at least two awards for his police work, according to Journal archives.
“It is obvious from this video that that officer needs to go. He’s not fit to wear the badge. Officers need to be prosecuted,” he said.
Police Chief Dean Esserman says the department’s Internal Affairs Division has been investigating the incident, but he would not confirm whether DeCarlo was involved. The officer that is the focus of the investigation currently remains on duty, he said.
Esserman has also asked the attorney general’s office to open an investigation. Michael J. Healey, a spokesman for the office, says an investigation is ongoing.
“The department takes the matter very seriously,” Esserman said. “We are looking into everything … One officer is under investigation, but the entire incident is being looked at as well.”
During the court hearing on Friday, Cardona tried to submit the surveillance video as evidence that Mendonca had not resisted arrest, as the police alleged. Mendonca had been charged by Providence police with two counts of simple assault and one count of resisting arrest.
But District Court Judge Elaine T. Bucci said that the video was inadmissible since the attorney general’s office had withdrawn the charge of resisting arrest.
“They dropped the resisting arrest charge so that this video does not come out,” said Cardona.
Cardona released the video to the media on Friday after having made it available to Channel 12 at least a day earlier. The videotape came from a surveillance camera on an apartment building at 306 Benefit St., and was focused on the parking lot where the beating took place.
Esserman says that the department’s internal affairs division obtained the video from the building’s owner and launched an investigation into the incident soon after it happened. Investigators questioned the witnesses and officers at the scene and also contacted Mendonca, who subsequently filed a formal complaint with the internal affairs division.
Cardona received a copy of the video as part of the court’s discovery process.
Judge Bucci found Mendonca guilty of violating the terms of his probation on previous charges and sentenced him to 90 days in the Adult Correctional Institutions in Cranston.
Upon completion of his prison term, Mendonca must also serve one year of probation and a one-year suspended sentence on each of the two charges of simple assault. Cardona says his client will appeal the sentence in Superior Court.
Mendonca still suffers blurred vision, headaches and vomiting from his injuries and needs to receive the proper medical treatment while he serves out his prison term, said Cardona.
“My client is a good kid. He worked for the City of Central Falls. He volunteers with youths,” says Cardona, an assistant city solicitor in Central Falls. “He’s had his transgressions, but none violent.”
Friday’s court proceedings shed some light into the events that precipitated Mendonca’s beating.
At about 7:20 p.m. on Oct. 20, Mendonca had been stopped by RISD police near Hemenway’s Restaurant on South Main Street, following a report of an attempted trespass at the RISD dorm at 15 Westminster St.
RISD officer Justin Wall testified that he had stopped Mendonca and was searching him when Mendonca “attempted to pull away,” striking the officer in the ribs with his elbow. Wall then put Mendonca in restraints.
When RISD Sgt. William LaPierre arrived, Mendonca identified himself as “Cory Garabedien,” but could not spell the name or produce any identification.
Still, the officers uncuffed Mendonca and said he was “free to go,” according to both officer’s testimony. But with Providence police on their way, the RISD officers say that Mendonca offered to show an ID.
Instead, LaPierre says Mendonca made a “lunging move,” struck the officer in the chest, and pushed LaPierre’s arm out of the way as he fled down South Main Street. Mendonca ran up a long flight of stairs behind the state attorney general’s office that led to the rear of an apartment complex on Benefit Street.
While the officer’s testimony on Friday ended there, the video released by Mendonca’s attorney shows what happened next.
After trying to hide under parked cars, the video shows that at about 7:41 p.m., Mendonca was seized by a group of at least eight police officers — mostly Providence police, but also one RISD officer –– and was beaten while “clearly” restrained, says Cardona.
“We want all of those police officers held accountable,” said Cardona. “Not one of those officers comes to this poor guy’s aid. They knew that this guy was defenseless.”
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Video:
http://www.jacksonnjonline.com/2009/12/04/rhode-island-police-officer-caught-on-camera-kicking-suspect/
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