Philly cops with history of abuse complaints that were not sustained had their names cleared by an all-white jury in excessive force case brought to Federal Court by an openly gay man.
Mr. Luis Berrios, an openly gay Latino man in his early thirties, certainly didn’t have a jury of his peers when he entered a Federal Courthouse on Monday morning for a trial five years in the making, though many of his peers sat behind him in benches and offered nods of support whenever Mr. Berrios turned around.
The all-white jury, who on Wednesday afternoon rendered a verdict of not guilty in the case of Luis Berrios vs The City of Philadelphia, wasn’t familiar with the City, its politics or its neighborhoods – a judge asked one officer to describe North Philly for the jurors and he described a dense and dangerous locale – and they appeared indifferent as they listened to Mr. Berrios testify about the alleged verbal and physical abuse that followed Officers Robert Tavarez and Michael Gentile’s arrival to his apartment in December 2010 after responding to a domestic disturbance call.
The case was, as the defendants’ attorney put it, about excessive force, not about the alleged slurs, but Mr. Berrios’ attorney continued to reference it, which, given the defendants’ attorney’s relentless, yet unproven, assertions of PCP usage, seemed fair.
When Mr. Berrios’ attorney, Ms. Rania Major, attempted to bring up in detail either the two Officers’ complaint history – both have complaints for physical and verbal abuse that weren’t sustained, meaning there wasn’t enough evidence to prove or disprove – or the discriminatory manner in which police over the decades have interacted with members of the LGBT community, the judge, who Mr. Barrios said was bias and obviously favored police, would strike down the momentum before it got started.
Ms. Major argued that the Officers’ offensive language and homophobia motivated their physical assault, and the attorney for the defendants denounced the entire argument as a distraction, urging the jury, again, that their job is to rule on facts about use of force on Mr. Berrios, and nothing else.
It took the jury roughly less than two hours to return with a not guilty verdict. Mr. Berrios, who’s not expected to appeal the decision, was visibly upset following the trial, and was comforted by activists Ms. Elicia Gonzalez and Mr. Asa Khalif, who told me that Mr. Berrios “is not his verdict,” and that he won simply by standing up to the system.
“His courage will inspire many more Philadelphians like him to rise up with their stories of police misconduct,” said Mr. Khalif, head of the Pennsylvania chapter of Black Lives Matter.
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I have to admit that I did not follow this case, but it seems that the plaintiff’s case for this is that if the officer used excessive force in which there are laws against this. However, as for slurs and foul language, well…so what? Are there laws against this? If there were, every person who makes these abhor comments on the internet is guilty. As for the jury, you know that both lawyers have to agree on each juror thru the juror selection and the best juror are the ones that are so far removed from the case that they… Read more »