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Police commander lied about arrests during convention { March 23 2006 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/23/nyregion/23arrest.html?_r=1&oref=sloginhttp://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/23/nyregion/23arrest.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
March 23, 2006
Police Commander Accused of Lying About Arrests During Convention
By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
A civil liberties group accused the Police Department yesterday of providing false information used to prosecute hundreds of people arrested in protest marches during the 2004 Republican National Convention, and said that information might have tainted the arrests.
The New York Civil Liberties Union said that deposition testimony from a police inspector who oversaw arrests during the convention flatly contradicted criminal complaints against the demonstrators sworn to by the same inspector.
But police officials defended the arrests yesterday, saying that they were "appropriate," and that the inspector's testimony had been taken out of context.
The deposition was taken two weeks ago, on March 7 and March 9, as part of litigation in Federal District Court in Manhattan filed by scores of demonstrators who claim that they were subjected to false arrest and that their civil rights were violated during the convention, held in August and September 2004
In the deposition, the police inspector, James Essig, was asked whether he or any other member of the Police Department had asked demonstrators gathered near Union Square on Aug. 31, 2004, to disperse. He replied, "No," according to a transcript of the deposition released by the civil liberties group.
Asked whether he or any other police officer warned the demonstrators that they would be arrested if they did not leave the block, Inspector Essig, who was a deputy inspector at the time, again said, "No."
Nearly 400 people were arrested near Union Square that day on charges of disorderly conduct and parading without a permit. They spent hours in jail — many up to 48 hours — before appearing in court.
The inspector's answers are important, civil liberties lawyers said, because for the arrests to be legal, the police had to have found that the demonstrators were blocking traffic, and had to have given them fair warning to disperse or be arrested. And that is exactly what the criminal complaints filed by prosecutors say happened.
The complaints, which were sworn to in writing by Inspector Essig on Sept. 1, said that the police warned the group "that they were blocking vehicular traffic, had to disperse and would be arrested if they did not."
Donna Lieberman, executive director of the civil liberties group, said yesterday that the contradiction between Inspector Essig's sworn statement in 2004 and his answers during the deposition two weeks ago showed that the criminal complaints were tainted and should be thrown out.
In a letter to Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, Ms. Lieberman called for prosecutors to review the complaints.
Barbara Thompson, a spokeswoman for Mr. Morgenthau, said the complaints would be reviewed.
But Paul J. Browne, deputy police commissioner, said the arrests were appropriate and that the civil liberties union was using selective quotations from Inspector Essig's deposition to suggest that he had lied.
Mr. Brown pointed to other parts of the transcript, in which Inspector Essig was asked whether he told the group that it was blocking traffic, and he replied: "I don't recall specifically what I said. What I said was 'Stop,' or other words to that effect."
Asked whether he gave an order to disperse, the inspector said, "I attempted to," before being questioned further by the civil liberties union's lawyer and saying he did not.
But Christopher Dunn, the civil liberties group's associate legal director, said that Inspector Essig, when pressed, was unambiguous in his testimony. " 'No' is about as clear as it gets," Mr. Dunn said
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
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