Victim describes beating: DRESSED LIKE THUGS, ATTACKERS IN EAST P.A. SHOUTED, `WE'RE THE POLICE'
/San Jose Mercury News [here]
Bloodied and beaten on a dark East Palo Alto street and clutching a single rock of crack cocaine, the man had no idea who had attacked him.
He didn't report it. He didn't think police would care.
So he was surprised when, three months later, investigators asked what had happened that August night, he told the Mercury News. Even more shocking was the news investigators delivered last week: The men who allegedly beat him included two off-duty East Palo Alto police officers and a teenage department volunteer.
The man with a lengthy criminal record recounted what happened to him about midnight between Aug. 21 and 22.
``I thought they were going to kill me,'' said the man, who asked that his name and age not be published for fear of retaliation.
The police officers under suspicion have told investigators from the San Mateo County District Attorney's Office that they confronted the man because he offered to sell them drugs, but that when they chased him, he disappeared.
The officers have not returned repeated messages. East Palo Alto Interim Chief Steven Belcher said Thursday that it is against the law for the department, including the officers under question, to comment on a case under an internal department review, which is paralleling the criminal investigation.
Corroboration
But a source close to the investigation confirmed that the account the man gave to the Mercury News matches what he told investigators. Sources said the man's story has been corroborated with other evidence that includes secretly recorded conversations.
On the night of the alleged incident, the man told the Mercury News, he had $1 in his pocket, just enough for a can of malt liquor.
He noticed a dark SUV in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven store on West Bayshore Road. Inside were four men and a woman.
``They called out to me and said, `You got any crack?' '' the man said.
``I can get you $20 worth,'' the man said he replied.
His criminal record includes felony convictions for drug possession, assault with a deadly weapon and robbery.
The man said he walked to a friend's home nearby to get the rock cocaine. ``Lemme see, lemme see,'' the people in the SUV asked when he returned. But when he held out the drug, he said, a passenger tried to slap it out of his hand. The man held on and walked away to avoid trouble. He was headed back to his friend's house when the SUV sped up and pulled over beside him.
He said four men jumped out, shouting that they were going to kill him. The man ran but fell. The men pounced, he said. They punched and kicked him. He said doctors later told him he had three cracked ribs.
Curled into a fetal position, he clung to the cocaine, which the attackers were trying to pry loose.
As they beat him, he said, one attacker shouted, ``We're the police.'' But he didn't believe them because, he said, they were dressed like thugs.
Finally, after about three minutes, he heard a woman in the SUV laugh and shout, ``C'mon. Leave him alone. The cops are going to come.''
The beating slowed and stopped. They drove away and one person called out, ``The next time I see you I'm going to . . . kill you!''
He stumbled to a nearby apartment building, and a friend took him home. The next morning his mother saw his swollen face and drove him to the Stanford University Hospital emergency room. When he told doctors what happened, they said they had to call police. The man objected. He didn't want any trouble. The doctors insisted.
Investigators
No police came, the man and another source close to the investigation say.
But in November, investigators came to him.
At first the man was reluctant to cooperate. He said he didn't want to be a snitch.
Now, he just waits to see whether criminal charges will be filed against his attackers.
The man said he doesn't have a lawyer. Sometimes he thinks he sees police cars slowing as they pass his intersection. It makes him nervous.
Belcher, the interim chief, said the man has nothing to fear from his officers.
Still, the man says he rarely leaves his mother's home.
``I'm real scared,'' he said.
- Alleged attack by police spurs calls for new probe [more]
