Rob:
The Blue Wall and Louima from the NY Times
The line wrap may be funky. I understand your outrage as you seem to be a decent guy but before you say I don't know of what I speak,
reconsider. I may make a mistake but I do not
make stuff up knowingly.
February 16, 2000
Police Union Official Concedes Advising Silence on Louima to Officers
---------------------------------------------
By ALAN FEUER
[H] is voice seething with controlled rage, a
high-ranking police union official
grudgingly testified yesterday that he had
told several officers at the 70th Precinct in
Brooklyn to "sit tight" and not talk to
investigators about the vicious assault on
Abner Louima. But he denied that he had
coached the officers in getting their stories
straight.
The union official, Michael Immitt, was
called as a government witness in the trial
of Charles Schwarz, Thomas Bruder and Thomas
Wiese -- three police officers accused of
covering up the assault on Mr. Louima in the
bathroom of the 70th Precinct station house
nearly three years ago.
Mr. Immitt, a trustee of the Patrolmen's
Benevolent Association, was truculent and
angry from the moment he took the stand in
Federal District Court in Brooklyn, answering
difficult questions by a federal prosecutor
with heavy sarcasm and a steady, glaring
gaze.
Under a fierce examination by the prosecutor,
Alan Vinegrad, Mr. Immitt conceded that on
Aug. 13, 1997, four days after the attack, he
met behind closed doors in the station house
basement with the three defendants and Justin
A. Volpe, the former officer who pleaded
guilty last year to sodomizing Mr. Louima
with a broken broomstick. Mr. Volpe's
brother, Officer Damian Volpe, and a police
lawyer, Hugo Ortega, were also in the room,
Mr. Immitt said.
Referring to the attack, Mr. Immitt then
conceded that he had told the officers: "Sit
tight, don't talk about it. Don't talk to
anyone unless something official comes down."
He also testified that after the assault, he
appeared at numerous roll calls at the
station house and told the officers he met
there to keep silent about the incident.
Mr. Immitt insisted that it was not unusual
for union officials to meet with officers
under suspicion of wrongdoing. His advice to
be silent, he added, was part of his role as
a union trustee. "I didn't want anyone else
involved that wasn't involved," he said.
But suggesting that the meeting was held for
a darker purpose, Mr. Vinegrad hammered Mr.
Immitt with a battery of similar questions.
Was the meeting conducted to make sure people
had their stories straight? To make sure that
everyone agreed to keep their mouths shut? To
make sure that the investigation by the
Police Department's Internal Affairs Bureau
would not succeed? Stern but obviously
perturbed, Mr. Immitt answered no to each
question.
Mr. Vinegrad was visibly surprised at one
point when Mr. Immitt testified that he had
no idea when he went to the meeting that Mr.
Louima had been sexually assaulted, even
though on the morning the meeting was held
The Daily News had published a photograph of
Mr. Louima in his hospital bed accompanied by
a banner headline that read "Tortured by
Cops" and a smaller headline beside it
referring to a "sex assault."
"You had no knowledge that the story of this
case was on the front page of The Daily
News?" Mr. Vinegrad asked.
"Correct," Mr. Immitt replied.
Moments later, Mr. Vinegrad asked
incredulously, "You were the union trustee in
charge of Brooklyn South at the time?"
Again, Mr. Immitt said, "Correct."
For days, both sides in the case have been
battling over Mr. Schwarz's role in the
assault. The government contends -- and a
jury in a previous trial has found -- that
Mr. Schwarz restrained Mr. Louima as Mr.
Volpe jammed the broken broomstick into Mr.
Louima's rectum. The government is arguing
that after the assault Mr. Schwarz conspired
with Officers Bruder and Wiese to lie to the
authorities to exonerate himself. Defense
lawyers maintain that there was no conspiracy
about Mr. Schwarz's involvement because Mr.
Schwarz was not involved.
Yesterday, however, the trial focused
directly on the question of a conspiracy to
obstruct justice as the lawyers for both
sides argued endlessly about the three
defendants' versions of what happened on the
night of the attack, Aug. 9, 1997. Unlike the
first trial, which covered the details of the
assault itself, the cover-up trial has mostly
focused on how accounts of what happened that
night have changed over time.
Mr. Vinegrad used his questioning of Mr.
Immitt and other witnesses yesterday to show
instances where Officer Wiese had changed his
story in an interview with Internal Affairs
investigators and that Officer Bruder had
changed his account after retaining a lawyer.
The government contends that these changes
were an effort by the two men to tailor their
accounts to make it seem it as if Mr. Schwarz
was not involved in the attack.
Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company
The sad part is that good cops can't speak up on this sort of BS without fear of losing their jobs. Police chiefs and the like are political creatures, are they not? And the current favorite political topic is gungrabbing. I pity the line officer who has to carry out their chief's hare-brained policies.
