New Brunswick settles Excessive Force suit for $120,000 in Warrantless, Unlawful Police Search & Beating of Arab College Student

From [HERE] The city and the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office agreed to pay $120,000 to two Rutgers University students who accused officers in the city Police Department of beating and abusing them. They had filed a $2 million federal lawsuit against the department, claiming excessive force.

Kareem Najjar and Jake Kostman say they were asleep when officers from the New Brunswick Police Department stormed into their apartmentnat 4:30 AM in the basement of an off-campus house Dec. 10 and began beating the college students in their beds without any warning and without identifying themselves as police.

"We didn't know they were cops," Najjar, a 19-year-old sophomore, told AOL News today in a phone interview. "One was wearing a ski mask, one was wearing a Rutgers hoodie. Another had on a Jack Daniel's T-shirt and work boots. I honestly thought we were getting robbed." The officers involved were Patrolman Keith Walcott, Sgt. Scott Gould (the community liaison officer), and Detectives Miguel Chang, Andrew Weiss and Robert Bogdanski.

The students say the officers -- who were apparently serving a warrant for someone else in the house -- punched and kicked them multiple times in the face, back and ribs. Kostman, 20, said Najjar began to bleed from his ear after four officers held him to the ground, one pressing his head into the floor with a boot.

"Kareem is just in a ball on all fours, there are four cops on him and he's bleeding from the head. At this point you just gotta hope and pray that they are cops," Kostman told AOL News. Najjar and Kostman say the officers only identified themselves after handcuffing them, but told the roommates they weren't under arrest.

The police searched the pair’s basement apartment without a proper warrant or any justification, New York–based attorney Bryan Konoski said.  Based on suspicion of drug dealing, police had a warrant to search other apartments in the rooming house, Konoski said, but not his clients’.[MORE] 

“Our position was that they had no right to enter the basement apartment,” he said. “There was no reason to believe that they had engaged in any wrongdoing. Their position was that they had a search warrant, could do whatever they wanted and enter all the rooms. Our position is that they didn’t have a reason to enter this room, because it was not on the map as a target of the investigation. The police didn’t even know Jake and Kareem.”

Kostman and Najjar eventually were released without being charged, Konoski said. His clients moved from the house but continued to study at Rutgers, he said.

New York–based attorney Bryan Konoski said his clients were happy with the settled amount and the opportunity to avoid lengthy litigation as they finish college.

“Based on the evidence we received during the course of litigation, our confidence in the case increased over time,” Konoski said. “We believed we could pursue the case further to obtain a higher settlement figure. My clients agreed that it would be in their best interest to avoid lengthy litigation. That’s why we’re happy with the amount and feel it’s justified.”

According to the suit, Najjar and Kostman were “punched in the head” and “beaten about the face, head and body with fists and feet.” Kostman also claimed that after he was lying on this stomach, handcuffed, police “stomped and kicked” him.

Both 19-year-olds were taken to the main floor of the building and allegedly were forced to sit in their underwear on a couch in front of police and others who lived in the house. They alleged that since the front door had been kicked in by police, they had to sit in the cold for two hours while police refused their requests for clothes. 

"The whole time they're making jokes, saying, 'Oh I'm warm,' " Kostman recalled. "The four of us were huddled [together] trying to stay warm, and they're saying, 'Look at these f****ts trying to cuddle.' " Najjar said one of the officers used derogatory language toward his Asian housemate before telling another he looked "like the f****t from 'Twilight,' " the movie. [MORE] 

Najjar and Kostman were never arrested or charged with any crime and say they have never been in trouble with the law.