{"id":285445,"date":"2016-12-17T12:31:58","date_gmt":"2016-12-17T11:31:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/ex-nypd-chief-to-stand-trial-in-occupy-wall-street-police-brutality-case\/"},"modified":"2016-12-17T12:32:02","modified_gmt":"2016-12-17T11:32:02","slug":"ex-nypd-chief-to-stand-trial-in-occupy-wall-street-police-brutality-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/ex-nypd-chief-to-stand-trial-in-occupy-wall-street-police-brutality-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-NYPD chief to stand trial in Occupy Wall Street police brutality case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.rt.com\/files\/2016.12\/thumbnail\/5854b928c361881e198b4608.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>        Former New York Police Department Chief and current commissioner of the Office of Emergency Management Joseph Esposito will stand trial for police brutality and malicious prosecution related to the arrest of an Occupy Wall Street protester.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>John Scott Dekuyper, 58, was arrested at an Occupy Wall Street protest in Times Square in October 2011. While he was only one of 92 people <a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/world\/americas\/invasion-of-times-square-leads-to-92-arrests-2371707.html\">arrested<\/a>\u00a0in Times Square, video footage taken at the scene depicted an officer repeatedly punching Dekuyper in the head. Now over five years later, a judge has granted Dekuyper permission to file a civil rights suit against Esposito and two officers involved, Shreeganes Meade and Patrick Mullane.<\/p>\n<p>According to Dekuyper\u2019s attorney, the conflict began when he joined an Occupy Wall Street march from Manhattan\u2019s Lower East Side up to Times Square. Once the participants reached the tourist hub, a messy melee broke out between protesters and law enforcement. Esposito, who was acting NYPD chief, responded and attempted to corral the crowds by blocking the protesters off with barriers and ordering police horses to go into the crowds.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"854\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9eOmKyS7Wik\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>According to Esposito\u2019s depositions, Dekuyper was on the barrier \u201c<em>being loud, boisterous<\/em>\u201d and \u201c<em>trying to get through the barrier by pushing it out of the way, by lifting it, by throwing it at the police, pushing it toward the pole, and throwing toward the police.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, earlier in his deposition, Esposito claimed he did not recall seeing the barricade move when Dekuyper\u2019s hands were on it and initially couldn\u2019t recall if the barricades moved more than an inch, but then claimed it moved \u201c<em>a foot or two.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In addition, Esposito admitted that he never saw Dekuyper go through the police barricades prior to his arrest.<\/p>\n<p>Esposito also claims that when he confronted Dekuyper, he attempted to grab Esposito\u2019s shield off of his shirt. \u201c<em>He actually grabbed hold of the shield,<\/em>\u201d Esposito said, \u201c<em>but I was able to maintain control of it and that\u2019s when he was actually rescued, if you want to call it that, by the other demonstrators who pulled him back into the crowd.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This was the first of two altercations between the men, according to Esposito\u2019s testimony. His version of events has a second interaction with Dekuyper when the protester returned and grabbed the barrier and attempted to throw it again, leading to Dekuyper\u2019s arrest.<\/p>\n<p>Naturally, Dekuyper\u2019s version is incredibly different and has a video to support him. Dekuyper denies trying to grab Esposito\u2019s shield at all and heard no commands or warnings from the police, but he did say that he \u201c<em>may have screamed at police<\/em>\u201d or moved his arms while yelling at the police.<\/p>\n<p>Dekuyper was filmed moving his arms as he yelled at the police, but Officer Shreeganes Meade was filmed responding by reaching over, removing Dekuyper\u2019s hat and punching him in the head six times. During the course of the beating, Dekuyper is seen grabbing the barricade with one hand and trying to push Meade back after the first punch.<\/p>\n<p>However, Meade claimed in his deposition that punching Dekuyper\u2019s head like a speedbag was justified because Dekuyper had assaulted him, saying, \u201c<em>It is on video clearly<\/em>.\u201d Meade may be referring to 0:43 in the video, where Dekuyper is seen moving his hand over the barricade towards Meade\u2019s left shoulder. It is unclear whether Dekuyper actually makes contact with Meade, as his upper body does not appear to move from any touch, but Meade does then take a step back.<\/p>\n<p>While Meade never filed charges against Dekuyper, he claimed that he notified \u201c<em>numerous superiors<\/em>\u201d about the incident, but failed to name one during the deposition. In addition, about eight seconds pass between Dekuyper allegedly pushing Meade and Meade first removing the beanie on Dekuyper\u2019s head before punching him with a closed fist.<\/p>\n<p>According to Dekuyper\u2019s attorney Gideon Oliver, Dekuyper was further beaten after being handcuffed. He later lost consciousness and was diagnosed with a concussion. While in custody, Dekuyper claims that Officer Mullane had booked him and denied access to Synthroid, a medication he requires as a result of treatment for stage 4 cancer treatment that was kept in the backpack he was wearing while arrested.<\/p>\n<p>An attempt to prosecute Dekuyper for second degree obstruction of governmental administration fell apart in 2013 after the Manhattan District Attorney\u2019s office moved to dismiss the charges after Esposito told prosecutors that the statements used against Dekuyper were \u201c<em>inconsistent<\/em>,\u201d \u201c<em>inaccurate<\/em>,\u201d \u201c<em>not true<\/em>\u201d and \u201c<em>should have been corrected<\/em>,\u201d according to documents from the Manhattan district attorney.<\/p>\n<p>Dekuyper\u2019s lawsuit against Esposito, Meade and Mullane has been given the go-ahead and will go to trial in March if a settlement is not reached beforehand.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"854\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zvJlXWxLOa4\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/usa\/370594-occupy-wall-street-protester\/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=RSS\">RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former New York Police Department Chief and current commissioner of the Office of Emergency Management Joseph Esposito will stand trial for police brutality and malicious prosecution related to the arrest of an Occupy Wall Street protester. John Scott Dekuyper, 58, was arrested at an Occupy Wall Street protest in Times Square in October 2011. While [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":285447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-285445","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}