NYPD subway sodomy incident

The NYPD subway sodomy incident refers to the circumstances of the October 15, 2008, arrest of Michael Mineo by New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers. According to Mineo, the arresting police officers pinned him to the ground, while Richard Kern, one of the officers, pulled down Mineo's pants and sodomized him with a police baton. On December 9, 2008, the Brooklyn District Attorney indicted the three arresting officers and charged them with felonies. Richard Kern was charged with aggravated [...] abuse in the first degree, assault in the first degree, and hindering prosecution. Two other officers, Andrew Morales and Alex Cruz, were charged with hindering prosecution and official misconduct. The officers have pleaded not guilty.

Background

Michael Mineo

Michael Mineo was born c.1984 in either the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York or in Dallas, Texas. He is Italian-Puerto Rican. Both of his parents died of [...] overdoses when he was around eleven years old. He then moved in with his mother's parents, but they both died by the time he was fourteen. He then moved in with an aunt by marriage and her husband who lived in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. According to Webcrims Mineo is scheduled to appear for that summons on January 2. Mineo is also currently under indictment on felony assault charges stemming from an unrelated incident for which he was arrested on April 18, 2008. Mineo's defense for his indictment was a legal aid attorney, following the alleged incident on October 15 he hired a private attorney. In the fall of 2003, Mineo stole his friend's mother's credit cards and placed more than $6,000 on the card. During that time, he left for New York City; soon thereafter he was arrested on [...] possession and was found to be carrying the stolen credit cards.

Richard Kern

In 2007, New York City paid out $50,000 to settle two excessive force lawsuits filed against Richard Kern. However, the Civilian Complaint Review Board cleared him of wrongdoing and Kern says the excessive force claims were a "complete lie".

Incident

On October 15, 2008, Michael Mineo was allegedly smoking a [...] joint outside the Prospect Park train station located in the Lefferts Gardens neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. When approached by police officers, Mineo ran into the train station, jumped the turnstile, but was caught and handcuffed near the token booth. According to the officers, they found no drugs on him, issued him a summons for disorderly conduct, and let him go. According to Mineo, after he was handcuffed and pinned down, Richard Kern pulled down his pants and shoved a police radio antenna into his anus. Mineo later changed his version to a police baton. On October 23, Mineo's attorneys announced the incident and noted that they planned to file a lawsuit against New York City on Mineo's behalf.

Parallels to Abner Louima

This case has drawn parallels to a similar set of circumstances that took place in August 1997, in which NYPD officers assaulted and forcibly sodomized Abner Louima with a broken broomstick after he was arrested. However, there are differences between the Louima and Mineo situations. Louima was black and his 1997 police attackers were white, whereas Mineo is described as white and Hispanic and the involved police officers are white, black and Hispanic. Louima had no criminal record at the time. He was assaulted in a bathroom in a police station house, whereas Mineo had been arrested several times prior to the alleged sodomy in public near a subway information booth. Although both were purportedly victims of foreign objects inserted into the rectum through the anus, Louima's injuries were far more severe.

Criticism of NYPD

The NYPD was criticized for not taking Mineo's claims seriously. The accused officers were kept on regular patrol duty for two and half weeks after the incident. The police maintain that they aggressively located records, reviewed hours of videotape, examined MetroCard records, and retained equipment for DNA testing.

See also

• Frank Lino