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City man alleges four police officers assaulted him during arrest | Paterson Times

City man alleges four police officers assaulted him during arrest

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A city man filed a federal lawsuit against the city’s police department last Tuesday alleging several police officers “forcefully hit and kicked” him during an allegedly unconstitutional arrest last summer.

Gregory Bouie, city resident, states that on August 28, 2013 four police officers responded to a third party domestic dispute call after he and his girlfriend exchanged heated words at a North 9th Street auto body repair shop.

Responding officer located Bouie with his girlfriend, Tanisha Green, at the intersection of Belmont Avenue and North 7th Street. Officers Brian Goodson, Florence Ackerman, Rafael Campos, and Giuseppe Ciarla indicated to Bouie that the department received a call from a third party about a domestic dispute.

“Mr. Bouie and Ms. Green told the officers that they had gotten into a verbal argument about the vehicle while at the auto body shop, but that there was no physical altercation, and that they did not need the officers’ assistance,” states the lawsuit.

“Someone needs to get arrested because someone called about a fight,” an officer said at the scene according to the suit.

A second officer allegedly blurted out, “Lock both of them up.”

The officers then handcuffed both Green and Bouie without any resistance, according to the suit. When Bouie was securely handcuffed with his hands behind his back an officer hurled a question, “So you like beating up women?”

Following the question came a beat down from the officers, the suit asserts. The “officers forcefully hit and kicked Mr. Bouie about the eyes, chest, ribs, hands and back,” suit reads. Green was turned towards another direction by one of the officers while they stomped and beat a handcuffed Bouie, according to the suit.

Police then searched Bouie for drugs, but found nothing, according to the suit. He was then placed in a police car and transported to the precinct where Goodson, Campos, and Ciarla along with another group of unidentified police officers “without provocation, assaulted Mr. Bouie a second time, hitting him multiple times about the face and body while his hands were securely behind his back,” the suit says.

A badly injured Bouie was placed in the holding cell and ignored by officers. Bouie requested medical attention and was transported to St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center by an ambulance. At the hospital he was ”diagnosed with fracture of the base of the second metacarpal, given a radial gutter splint, and provided medication for swelling and pain,” states the suit.

Bouie on August 29 was arraigned on possession of marijuana and charged with simple assault, according to the suit. Bouie was then released. Bouie filed internal affair complaints against the officers which were dismissed following several hearing, according to the suit.

Bouie continued to suffer from injuries sustain from the police interaction. “Bouie sought follow-up treatment at St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center on November 11, 2013, complaining of continued pain in the same hand that was fractured on August 28, 2013.”

Bouie’s lawyers Fisher, Byrialsen and Kreizer of New York write that his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, were violated. “The police officers “while acting under color of the state law, engaged in conduct which constituted a custom, usage, practice, procedure or rule of his/her respective municipality/authority, which is forbidden by the Constitution of the United States,” suit reads.

With the suit Bouie is seeking $6 million in compensatory damage, legal fees, and additional punitive damage awards the court may see fit.

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