YOU DONT SAY?? A COP CAUGHT LYING when killing a black teen? . nytimes/2014/11/27/nyregion/new-york-city-and-officer-found-liable-in-fatal-05-shooting-of-a-teenager.html?ref=nyregion&_r=0 N.Y. / REGION New York City and Officer Found Liable in Fatal ’05 Shooting of a Teenager By BENJAMIN MUELLERNOV. 26, 2014 Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main storyShare This Page Email Share Tweet Save More Continue reading the main story In the hours after a Bronx teenager was shot and killed by a New York City police sergeant on an October night in 2005, accounts of a tragedy crystallized into an orderly tale. The police said that Leonel Disla, 19, had waved a long kitchen knife at two police officers before he was shot. The doubts of newspaper reporters were assuaged. Prosecutors declined to press charges. In the nine years since, the public record has not wavered: Mr. Disla, who was born in the Dominican Republic, had invited that fatal shot. But this week, as tempers swirled on the streets of New York over police officers’ use of deadly force, that story began to erode. A six-person jury in Bronx Supreme Court on Tuesday found the city and Sgt. Robert Barnett liable in Mr. Disla’s death, casting doubt on whether the teenager had wielded a knife at all. A separate trial will determine what damages should be awarded to Mr. Disla’s family. The unanimous verdict, which came a day after a grand jury declined to indict a police officer in the death of an unarmed teenager in Ferguson, Mo., offered a stark reminder that even ironclad narratives of fatal police encounters can crumble. The Disla family’s pursuit of a lawsuit could presage the next steps for the family of Michael Brown, the teenager killed in Ferguson. Photo Leonel Disla was fatally shot by a New York police officer in 2005. For Mr. Disla’s older brother, Lisandro Disla, 30, the verdict represented long-delayed justice. “It’s just been a waiting game, and desperation and anguish,” he said of the last nine years. “It’s like David and Goliath with the City of New York.” Ilann M. Maazel, a lawyer for Mr. Disla’s mother, said it was “one of these cases where you peer below the surface, and there were just giant holes in the police story.” A lawyer for the city, Patrick Mantione, who defended the sergeant in the trial, said he disagreed with the verdict. He said a jury two years ago had found no liability, but the verdict had been successfully appealed on the basis that the judge had given jurors incorrect instructions. “We respectfully disagree with the second jury’s verdict and will evaluate our options,” he said. It was around 2 a.m. on Oct. 30, 2005, when a lieutenant, an officer and Sergeant Barnett responded to reports of gunshots on Creston Avenue in the Tremont section of the Bronx. They could not find any witnesses or victims, but as they left, they noticed a scuffle breaking out behind them. A man was swinging a knife at two people on the sidewalk, and when the officers got out of their car, he swung at them, Sergeant Barnett testified last week, according to a court transcript. The officers said that the knife nicked the sweater of another officer, but did not cause any injuries. “He was coming toward me, coming at me with a knife,” Sergeant Barnett testified, referring to Mr. Disla. “I was in fear for my safety.” Sergeant Barnett shot at Mr. Disla twice, striking him once in the abdomen; he died a few hours later. Lawyers for Mr. Disla’s family argued that he had never even held a knife that night. Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main storyContinue reading the main story Mr. Maazel called the police officers’ story “one big Hollywood fiction.” He emphasized that detectives on the scene had initially found no fingerprints on the knife, and only later found one of Mr. Disla’s fingerprints on the blade, which, he said, raised questions about whether someone had tampered with the evidence. Lawyers for Mr. Disla’s family also capitalized on new testimony from an eyewitness, Juan Polanco, who was violating his parole when he attended a Halloween party on the night that Mr. Disla died. Mr. Polanco testified last week that he signed statements saying that Mr. Disla had a knife only under pressure from detectives who could have exposed him to a parole officer. “I never seen the knife on his hand or nothing,” Mr. Polanco testified. Sergeant Barnett’s account was also thrown into question by forensic evidence that showed that his bullet took a left-to-right path through Mr. Disla’s body. Sergeant Barnett said that Mr. Disla was facing him straight-on and charging directly at him when he fired, an account that a doctor who examined the autopsy said was impossible. The jury apparently agreed. Despite Mr. Mantione’s pleas that they disregard the wave of protests this week — “Who cares what’s going on out there?” — they found that Sergeant Barnett had exceeded a reasonable use of force. Mr. Disla’s brother Lisandro said that the newspaper reports describing him as a knife-wielding man with gang affiliations had cast a shadow over his family for years. His mother became forgetful, asking the same questions twice. “When that happened, my life just stopped,” he said. “Everything stopped for five, seven years.” Lisandro Disla said that he had been studying for a degree in airport management at the time, but that he had never returned to school. “All you seek is one thing — you just want the truth to be out there,” he said.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 02:26:32 +0000
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