71st Precinct Chief: If Policeman Injures Himself While Beating You – You can Be Charged for Assault
The 71st Precinct Council held its monthly public meeting yesterday at the I.S. 61 public school on Empire Blvd, with a paltry attendance of no more than 50 people – most of whom were not from the Jewish community.
The few members of the Jewish community who did attend made sure to press the commanding officer of the 71st precinct John Lewis for answers regarding the Shmini Atzeres beating of unarmed teenager Ehud Halevy.
Captain Lewis refused to answer any questions regarding the incident (aside from reading off a prepared statement), saying his superiors forbade him from doing so.
When the questioners continued to press him as to why Ehud was charged with assaulting an officer when it was clearly the officers who assaulted Ehud, and why they continue to refuse to drop these absurd and clearly false charges – he gave a general response which we found quite shocking.
“Whenever the police are engaged in taking action… and you’re trying to prevent us from conducting our business and an injury occurs – you don’t have to punch, kick, slap; you don’t have to have any intent to assault; the mere fact that the officer gets injured… makes it assault to the second degree,” he said (see video below at about 5:40 mark).
In other words, what he seems to be implying (though he couldn’t say so clearly) regarding Ehud’s case was: Since Officer Luis Vega injured his knuckles while beating the daylights out of an innocent and harmless man – that man can be charged with injuring the officer, and spend years in jail for that felony upon conviction.
Luckily, Officer Yelena Bruzzese used a truncheon and not her fists to thrash Ehud, or he’d be facing two felony charges.
“I know it’s very difficult for a civilian to understand that concept,” Captain Lewis added.
No kidding.
And who do you think the cops are supposed be serving, Captain, if not the civilians!? Maybe the fact that such an absurd and lopsided policy is hard to understand by the average citizen means that it shouldn’t exist in the first place.
It makes you wonder how many innocent people are languishing on Rikers Island due to the fact that they had the misfortune of being assaulted by a cop without any video recording of the incident.
Other tidbits from the meeting:
• At the start of the meeting the police tried to kick out the press under the pretense that they “wanted people to be able to express themselves freely.” The reporters correctly pointed out that public meeting such as this must be open to the press by law. The police yielded and allowed them to stay.
• Captain Lewis introduced his new second-in-command at the 71st precinct: Captain Willin Burke.
• Three Hatzalah volunteers were honored for helping the Police subdue a mentally challenged man, who was threatening them with a knife, in a Crown Heights apartment a couple of weeks ago. The man was taken in for treatment without any injuries occurring.
• A representative from the office of the District Attorney mentioned that D.A. Charles Hynes didn’t see the video of Ehud’s beating until the day before. This is after three days of the video being broadcast on every network in every city in America. Either he isn’t telling the truth, or our district attorney is living under a rock.
hi
dosent look like many ppl went
pix 11 news
CH 11 has been off the air for over a month (on cable) so dont waste your time with that channel almost nobody will see it
MORE ACTION
THIS is one of the problems of this community. the top brass doesn’t care enough nor do enough. I for one would have gone to this meeting had I known about it. why isn’t there a reminder on one or all of these sites a day before the meeting, if you really want to see a presence there. It’s not enough to say it takes place every third Thursday, most of us have a few zillion other things on our minds besides this to remember, but if we saw a reminder a day before it would make a difference.
wow
wow six people… two more than the last community disaster
Sebastian Ronnie
So what’s the point? We see on video that the policeman and policewoman both walked away with some sweat running down their foreheads? Is that consisdered having injured a cop? C’mon. This is really silly. Wait till the boy’s lawyer takes care of this nonsense. Heads and salaries will be rolling dixie.
Ch.info
Understand that we live in America and understand that there are laws. You guys are a bunch of uneducated CHers who don’t understand the first thing about obaying laws. This fact that an officer who gets injured during an arrest can charge the person for assult is not a law that the 71st precient made up; this is an AMERICAN law.
Abba
Np but it does look like more than 50.
ARE THEY INSANE?????????????
So takkeh, if my face gets onto a police officer’s fist, I assaulted HIM?
It’s Chelm. It really is. I am speechless.
reminds me of the story with the muslim
She was stoned to death because she got raped.
Milhouse
He can say whatever he likes, but the legal definition of assault hasn’t changed. It has never depended on whether anyone is injured. Assault means putting someone in reasonable fear of injury. If you take a swing at someone, even if you don’t touch him, it’s assault. And if you don’t swing at him, which the video shows he didn’t, then it isn’t assault, even if he does somehow get injured. There is not one law for police and another for “civilians” (as if police are not civilians).
To #6 Lewis Is Wrong On Law
Lewis is right that you don’t need INTENT to be charged with assaulting a police office. HOWEVER, the statute still says that you need to CAUSE the injury in order to be charged with assault.
Ehud did NOT cause any of the injuries. The injuries were CAUSED by the police themselves.
End of story.
Realist Jew
“a paltry attendance of no more than 50 people – most of whom were not from the Jewish community.” That speaks volumes.
Abe the Lawyer
Simple question, why is there a empty seat at the community meeting. Will we wait until someone is shot by an officer and then start showing up to these meetings?
If he obeyed this wouldn-t have happened
Watch the begining of the video he clearly resisted arrest and chest butted the cop.
He is GUILTY of all charges period. He didn’t belong where he was and everybody in CH knows that.
His bruises are not life threatning maybe he will learn to do what a cop tells you.
Sruly C
This is all crazy, a reminder what Jews have to go through in Galus, if this was a African American teen in the Bronx, Sharpton would have made riots, and the mayors office would be apologizing, the cops would have bin suspended on the spot.
GadolHador
Here’s a good way to avoid NYPD police brutality- move out of New York! We are yiddim, a farming and argicultural people, not those who live in densely populated big cities!
#14 the footage from 30 days = ur wrong!
Aliya has nightly footage of Ehud sleeping in that room!
where do u get ur info from??
the 911 caller wont be charged with false statements to the media (claiming to be security) bec he’s been deemed as not 100%
before u advertise ur ignorance talk to ppl who frequent aliya in the evenings!
Ehud has been residing there nightly for weeks!!! that room was specifically designated for that purpose!!!
Dr
this is very distorted and shows how much inability is in the equation right now. I am waiting for sense and honesty to come in to this.
you can tell that Commander Lewis-s good
those who know Commander lewiss know that he has his hands tied! & is in no way tolerant of such misconduct by his subordinates!
i trust him to be doing whatever he can! remember he walked into a very currupt culture, it takes time to slowly expose & clean-out the bad-apples one investigation at a time!