New York Daily News
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime_file/2007/11/02/2007-11-02_si_cops_strip_strand_boy_after_hes_found-2.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime_file/2007/11/02/2007-11-02_si_cops_strip_strand_boy_after_hes_found-2.html
S.I. cops strip, strand boy after he's found tossing eggs
BY OREN YANIV, ALISON GENDAR and TINA MOOORE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Friday, November 2nd 2007, 4:00 AM
Two Staten Island cops are in hot water for trying to scare a 14-year-old boy they caught tossing eggs on Halloween by stripping off his clothes and dumping him in a desolate area, a police source and family members said.
Officers Thomas Elliassen and Michael Danese caught the prankster throwing eggs at cars in a 120th Precinct neighborhood about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, the source said.
The cops drove the teen to a swampy area of the 122nd Precinct, dropped him off wearing only boxer shorts and socks and left, the source said.
The boy, Rayshawn Moreno of Graniteville, walked to a Burlington Coat Factory store on South Ave. and asked a security guard there to call his parents, who picked him up, his dad said.
"Rayshawn was taken to a secluded, remote area, stripped of his clothes, beaten by the officers and left for dead," said his father, James Hezel.
The cops later told their supervisor that they dropped the kid off to scare him, the source said. They said they returned to find him later but that he was gone, the source said.
"He is shaken up. He is scared. He is terrified," Hezel said of his son, a freshman at Port Richmond High School.
Elliassen and Danese were put on modified duty. Their guns were taken away, and they were both working behind desks, the source said.
"The officers were placed on modified assignment based on a complaint made and the matter is under investigation," an NYPD spokesman said.
Internal Affairs Bureau detectives interviewed the boy and his mother last night.
Hezel said he believed the officers, who are white, picked on his son because the teen is black.
"There's still racism in the New York Police Department, especially in Staten Island," the father said.