Abner Louima (b.
1966 in Thomassin, Haiti
) is a
Haitian immigrant who was assaulted, brutalized and forcibly
sodomized with a broken broom stick by New York City police officers
after being arrested outside a Brooklyn
nightclub in
1997.
Background and incident
In 1997, 30-year-old Abner Louima was married, had one child, and
had been living in Brooklyn for the previous six years.
Although
he had trained as an electrical
engineer in Haiti, Louima worked as a security guard in a
water-and-sewage plant in Flatlands, Brooklyn
.
On August 9, 1997, Louima visited Club Rendez-Vous, a popular
nightclub in
East Flatbush.
Late in the night, he and several other men interceded in a fight
between two women. The police were called and several officers from
the
70th
Precinct were dispatched to the scene. There was a
confrontation between the police, patrons and bystanders involved
in the scuffle outside the club. The responding patrol officers
included Justin Volpe, Charles Schwarz, Thomas Bruder, and Thomas
Wiese, among others. In the ensuing scuffle, Volpe was struck by a
"
sucker-punch" and identified Louima as
his assailant. Volpe arrested Louima on charges of
disorderly conduct,
obstructing government
administration, and
resisting
arrest.
The arresting officers beat Louima with their fists,
nightsticks, and
hand-held police radios on the ride to the station. On arriving at
the station house, he was
strip-searched and put in a holding cell. The
beating continued later, culminating with Louima being
sexually assaulted in a bathroom at the 70th
Precinct station house in Brooklyn. Volpe kicked Louima in the
testicles, then, while Louima's hands were
cuffed behind his back, he first grabbed onto and squeezed his
testicles and then
sodomized him with a
broken broom stick, causing severe internal damage to his
colon and
bladder that required several operations to
repair. Volpe then walked through the precinct holding the bloody,
excrement-stained instrument in his hand, indicating that he had
"broke a man down."
Louima's teeth were also badly damaged in the attack by having the
plunger handle jammed into his mouth. He testified to the presence
of a second officer in the bathroom helping Volpe in the assault
but he could not positively identify him. The identity of the
second attacker became a point of serious contention during the
trial and appeals. Louima also initially claimed that the officers
involved in the attack called him a "
nigger"
and shouted, "This is
Giuliani-time"
during the beating. Louima later recanted this claim, and the
reversal was used by defense lawyers to cast doubt on the entirety
of his testimony.
The day
after the incident, Louima was transferred to the Coney Island
Hospital
emergency room. Escorting officers explained
away his serious injuries being a result of "abnormal
homosexual activities". An emergency room nurse,
Magalie Laurent, suspecting the nature of Louima's extreme injuries
were not the result of
gay sex, notified
Louima's family and the Police Department's
Internal Affairs Bureau
of the likelihood of sexual assault and battery. Louima was
hospitalized for two months after the incident.
Public reaction
The
incident provoked outrage among the Haitian and other minority
communities in New York
City
, as well as nationally. On August 29, 1997,
an estimated 7,000 demonstrators marched on to the New York City
Hall and the 70th Precinct station house where the attack took
place. The march was dubbed "Day of Outrage Against Police
Brutality and Harassment."
The Abner
Louima case was mentioned in the 1998 Amnesty International report on the
United States of
America
among several other cases of reported police brutality, torture and abuse. Amnesty International also
uses the incident as a case study on a treatise in the campaign
against torture.
Mike McAlary, a
New York Daily News journalist won
the 1998
Pulitzer Prize for
distinguished commentary for his exposé of the brutalization of
Louima by NYPD officers.
Criminal trials
Volpe initially pleaded not guilty to several counts of violating
Louima's
civil rights,
obstruction of justice, and
making false statements to police.
Midway through the trial, Volpe changed his plea to guilty,
confessing to having sodomized Louima. Despite the fact that Louima
had several broken teeth, Volpe denied that he ever struck Louima
in the mouth with the stick and claimed that he only put it very
close to Louima's mouth. Volpe also admitted that he had threatened
Louima's life. On December 13, 1999, Volpe was sentenced to 30
years in prison without the possibility of
parole, a $525 fine and
restitution in the amount of $277,495.
Charles Schwarz was convicted on June 27, 2000 for helping Volpe
assault Louima in the bathroom and was sentenced to 15 years in
prison. At the time of his conviction, there were numerous
questions raised about whether he could receive a fair trial in the
highly charged atmosphere. Volpe identified Thomas Wiese, not
Schwarz, as the second man in a recorded interview on news show
60 Minutes, a fact not brought
up in the trial. The conviction was overturned by the
U.S.
Court of
Appeals for the Second Circuit, which found that Schwarz was
denied a fair trial. However, in 2002 he pleaded guilty to a
perjury charge for testifying that he did
not lead Louima to the bathroom, and was sentenced to five years in
prison. His request for leniency was rejected on March 30, 2006. He
was released to a halfway house in February 2007 and plans to move
to the northern United States to work as a carpenter.
Three other NYPD officers, Thomas Bruder, Michael Bellomo and
Thomas Wiese were
indicted for their
involvement in trying to cover up the assault. On March 9, 2000,
Thomas Weise and Thomas Bruder along with Charles Schwarz were
convicted on the charge of
conspiracy to obstruct a federal
investigation into the assault on Louima, but their conviction was
reversed by a federal
appeals court in
February 2002 on the grounds of insufficient evidence. Michael
Bellomo was found not guilty of trying to cover up the beating of
Louima and that of another Haitian immigrant by Volpe earlier that
evening.
Aftermath
Louima's subsequent
civil suit against
the city resulted in a settlement of $8.75 million on July 30,
2001, the largest
police brutality
settlement in New York City history. After legal fees, Louima
collected approximately $5.8 million.
In February, 2003, Abner Louima visited his family still living in
Haiti. There he discussed the setting up of the Abner Louima
Foundation, a
nonprofit
organization with the hopes to raise money to build a community
center and much-needed hospital in Haiti. Louima indicated he had
plans to use his own money and donations to open community centers
in Haiti, New York and Florida for Haitians and others seeking
legal, financial or other aid. Louima also paid the school tuition
for 14 poor children in Thomassin, a small community where he grew
up. During his visit to Haiti, he met with the President of Haiti,
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a
former priest that Louima knew from his school days. In a rare
interview; Louima said he's convinced he can make a difference in
his impoverished homeland, "Maybe God saved my life for a reason, I
believe in doing the right thing."
Louima
currently resides in Miami Lakes
, Florida
, owning
homes in suburban Miami
and Port-au-Prince
, with several investment properties in
Florida.
Louima has since participated in anti-police-brutality protests
with
Al Sharpton, notably over the
shooting death of
Sean
Bell in 2006, and on August 9, 2007, exactly 10 years after his
attack. On the latter date, Louima was honored in New York City by
the National Action Network, at the House of Justice, for his
courage and perseverance in seeking justice, in addition to his
dedication to helping others who have suffered from police
brutality.
See also
References
- Herszenhorn, D. (1997.) "Family Describes a Readily Friendly
Man". The New York Times, Metropolitan Desk
Late Edition - Final. pp. Section B, Page 3, Column 1.; August
13, 1997.
- Brenner, M. (1997.) "Incident in the 70th Precinct" Vanity Fair,
reprinted on MarieBrenner.com. Retrieved December 6, 2006.
- BBC News. (1999.) "Haitian confronts alleged tormentors".
BBC.com. Retrieved December 7, 2006.
- Hinojosa, M. (1997.) "NYC officer arrested in alleged sexual attack on
suspect". CNN.com. Retrieved December 6, 2006.
- Dwyer, J. (2002.) "Abner Louima Today" The New York
Times, reprinted on Mindfully.org Retrieved December 6,
2006.
- The New York Times, August 9, 2007. "The Abner Louima Case, 10 Years Later".
The New York Times "The Lede" blog. Retrieved August 9,
2007.
- Karl, J. and P. Tyre. (1997.) "Demonstrators in New York protest police brutality".
CNN.com. Retrieved December 6, 2006.
- Amnesty International. (1998.) "AI Report 1998: United States of America".
Amnesty.org. Retrieved December 6, 2006.
- Amnesty International. (2000.) "Take a Step to Stamp Out Torture".
Amnesty.org. Retrieved December 6, 2006.
- The Pulitzer Prizes. (1998.) "The Pulitzer Prize winner, 1998 for Distinguished
Commentary". Pulitzer.org. Retrieved December 13,
2006.
- Grand Jury, United States District Court, Eastern District of
New York. (1998.) "U.S. v. Volpe, et al." Grand jury indictment,
reproduced on CourtTV.com. Retrieved December 6,
2006.
- CNN News. (1999.) "30-year sentence for N.Y. policeman in torture of
black man". CNN.com. Retrieved December 6, 2006.
- BBC News. (1999.) "NYPD Officer Jailed for Brutality". BBC.com.
Retrieved December 6, 2006.
- BBC News. (1999.) "NYPD Officer Jailed for Brutality" (same source and
article title, different content). BBC.com. Retrieved
December 6, 2006.
- Siegel, N. (2001.) "Why Police Officer Charles Schwarz, Convicted in
the Abner Louima Case, Deserves a New Trial".
Findlaw.com. Retrieved December 6, 2006.
- Hentoff, N. (2002.) "Schwarz: Justice or Technicalities?". The Village
Voice. Retrieved December 6, 2006.
- Louima Officer Returns to State To Finish Term,
The New York Times, 2007-02-04, Retrieved on 2007-03-17.
- BBC News. (2002.) "Convictions against NY police reversed".
BBC.com. Retrieved December 6, 2006
- New York City Counsel, Governmental Affairs Division, Committee
on Fire and Criminal Justice Services. (2002.) "Res No. 91A-2002". Retrieved December 6,
2006.
- BBC News. (2001.) "New York Pays for Police Brutality".
BBC.com. Retrieved December 6, 2006.
- James I. (2003.) "Louima turns to Haitian philanthrophy".
Associated Press. reprinted in Wehaitians.com Retrieved
December 7, 2006.
- Wehaitians.com gallery. (2003.) "Abner Louima, from dirt-poor to a great many times a
millionaire and ultra-celebrity". Wehaitians.com.
Retrieved December 7, 2006.
- Greene, Leonard and Stefanie Cohen. (2007). "Louima's Haunted High Life Ten Years Later".
The New York Post. Retrieved July 30, 2007.
- Associated Press. (2007). "Louima remembers New York police torture case on 10th
anniversary". "Abner Louima and Rev. Al Sharpton to commemorate
the tenth anniversary of Louima's Attack". National Action
Network. Retrieved August 9, 2007.
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