Hector and Piedad Munoz were beaten by cops responding to his scuffle with a police officer over an open container. From [HERE] and [MORE]  The city will pay a staggering $1.6 million to settle two lawsuits against cops accused of beating up two men in unrelated busts for public beer drinking.

In both cases, the plaintiffs denied they had open containers of beer. And both criminal cases against the men were eventually dismissed. And in both cases, the men claim they were brutalized by the NYPD. “These are two horrible examples of the excessive use of force by police, which remains a serious problem (in) New York,” said lawyer Sanford Rubenstein.

Hector Munoz was watching a soccer game in his East New York, Brooklyn, apartment with his family on Dec. 19, 2007, when he dashed to the bodega on the corner to buy a can of beer at halftime.

As he was approaching his apartment building a man wearing a hoodie bolted from a car in his direction. Munoz ran because he thought he was about to be attacked—and he was, by undercover officer Christopher Esposito, who testified that he was wearing his badge around his neck when he ran toward Munoz. Munoz, his wife Piedad, and daughter Jacqueline claim they were beaten by cops responding to the suddenly escalating incident, and their apartment was ransacked in the process.

The city settled Munoz's lawsuit last month for $775,000 as a jury was being empaneled. 

Esposito was a defendant in two other suits that settled for a total of $37,000.

Rubenstein's other client, a maintenance worker, who asked to remain anonymous, will get $850,000.The 46-year-old plaintiff in the Manhattan case, who requested that his name not be published, said he suffered fractures to his eye socket, jaw, neck, two fingers and ankle in the May 2, 2009, incident.

Officers Railyng Frias and Shazell Hamilton of the 32nd Precinct claimed he was drinking a beer out of a paper bag on Lenox Ave. Police claimed the  then resisted arrest, but Rubenstein has a different view of the incident.

He suffered fractures to his eye socket, jaw, neck, two fingers and ankle after he allegedly resisted arrest when cops accused him of drinking a beer on Lenox Avenue in Harlem. “He was choked and beaten with fists, feet and clubs by as many as eight cops,” Rubensteint ells the Daily News. “He was a bloody mess.”

 Frias was also sued in another case for excessive force which the city settled for $40,000, court records show.

The NYPD has said that cracking down on public drinking is a cornerstone of its crime strategy, not only because such arrests address quality-of-life crimes, but also because they give cops the chance to see if the drinker is wanted for a more serious crime or is carrying a weapon.

Public drinking summons are, by far, the most frequently issued violations, according to the Office of Court Administration. From 2007 to 2011, more than 600,000 New Yorkers have been slapped with the $25 fines.