Two Phila. officers to stand trial in alleged beating
Two Philadelphia police officers accused of knocking a man off his motor scooter and then beating him after he ran a stop sign in North Philadelphia were ordered to stand trial on brutality charges.
Two Philadelphia police officers accused of knocking a man off his motor scooter and then beating him after he ran a stop sign in North Philadelphia were ordered to stand trial on brutality charges.
The ruling by Municipal Court Judge Teresa Carr Deni in the case against Sean McKnight and Kevin Robinson followed heated arguments by their lawyers, who insisted that the officer did nothing wrong in the May 29, 2013, apprehension of Najee Rivera, 23.
"This case screams innocence on the part of these two young men, whom we have asked to put their lives on the line for us," said Fortunato N. Perri Jr., attorney for Robinson, 29, who was on the force six years at the time of the incident.
Brian J. McMonagle, attorney for McKnight, 30, an officer for seven years, argued that there was not enough evidence to hold the officers, and noted that Rivera testified that he could no longer remember details of what happened.
"He was a male fleeing police without an excuse," McMonagle told Deni. "He was struggling against a completely legal, legitimate demand."
Assistant District Attorney Andrew Wellbrock told Deni that a surveillance video of the incident undercut every aspect of the officers' statements.
Played in court, the video showed Rivera's scooter driving the wrong direction on Sixth Street near Cambria Street in Fairhill.
The officers' patrol car drove alongside Rivera - without lights or siren - and it appeared that an arm reached out a window and pushed Rivera, who lost control and toppled onto the sidewalk. An officer got out of the cruiser and immediately struck Rivera as he was on the ground.
According to the officers' statements to detectives, they tried to stop Rivera for running a stop sign near Seventh Street and Cambria. They said Rivera fled when they exited their patrol car.
The officers pursued Rivera until he fell from his scooter, they said. When they caught up to Rivera, the officers told detectives, he slammed Robinson against a brick wall, "threw elbows" at him, and tried to pull McKnight's collapsible baton from his hand.
McKnight told detectives that Rivera appeared to be under the influence of a hallucinogenic drug.
Rivera was taken to an emergency room for treatment of a broken eye-socket bone and stitches to numerous facial cuts. Wellbrock noted that no drug tests were ordered for Rivera; he said he did not know if his scooter was searched.
Rivera was charged with aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, and resisting arrest, but the District Attorney's Office withdrew the charges after taking the allegations against the two officers to a county grand jury.
Rivera lost his job as a housekeeper at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. In an interview this year, Rivera said he still suffers from migraines and memory and vision problems from his injuries. He filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city this year, which the city agreed to settle for $200,000.
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