Louima torture case

The Event Arrest and subsequent mistreatment of Abner Louima by four New York City police officers

Date August 9, 1997

Place Brooklyn, New York

The outrageous nature of the allegations of physical abuse by NYPD officers after they arrested Louima galvanized the public and focused intense attention during the subsequent trial proceedings on the police use of force.

Abner Louima was a Haitian immigrant arrested during a brawl outside a social club in Brooklyn, New York, during the early morning hours of August 9, 1997. One of the police officers called to the scene was struck and identified Louima as his assailant (this charge was later dropped). Louima was handcuffed and taken to the seventieth police precinct in Brooklyn. During that drive, it was alleged that the officers stopped and beat Louima. Once at the station, he was strip searched and then taken from the holding cell to a bathroom where the assault continued. The most heavily publicized aspect of this assault occurred when one officer used a plunger to sodomize Louima, later sticking the handle into his mouth and breaking several of his teeth. This was accompanied by racial slurs; he was eventually returned to the holding cell.

The next morning, Louima was taken by ambulance to a local hospital emergency room, where police told staff that he had been injured as the result of homosexual behavior. A nurse at the hospital did not believe this and notified Louima’s family and the New York Police Department (NYPD) Internal Affairs Bureau. The latter did not act on these allegations until his relatives called them thirty-six hours after the arrest. Louima remained hospitalized for two months, during which time the NYPD applied disciplinary measures (including transfer, suspension, and modified assignment) to fifteen officers and filed misconduct charges against the four officers involved in the initial incident. On February 27, 1998, following an investigations by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the NYPD’s own Internal Affairs Division, the arresting officers were charged with civil rights violations and a supervisor was charged with trying to cover up the assault. The NYPD filed additional charges in October, 1998, against the officers, claiming that they had lied to FBI agents investigating the case. Two of the officers received prison terms (one for thirty years), while Louima himself received $8.75 million—the largest police brutality settlement in New York City history.

Impact

This incident sparked outrage in the Haitian community, which joined with thousands of other citizens in several high-profile protests in New York City and Washington, D.C., against police brutality. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani created a task force to investigate the brutality allegations and promised to review recommendations from an Amnesty International report in June, 1996, that highlighted accusations of police brutality and excessive force in the NYPD. The resistance of police personnel to the investigation itself and the allegations of a cover-up prompted many recommendations for reform in NYPD procedures and supervisory structures. This included a proposal by Richard Emery, a prominent civil rights lawyer, that police station houses be equipped with video cameras to record all proceedings, including interrogations.

Bibliography

Alfieri, Alfred V. “Prosecuting Race.” Duke Law Journal 48, no. 6 (1999): 1157-1264.

Kleinig, John. “Civil Rights and Civil Liberties: Videotaping the Police.” Criminal Justice Ethics 17, no. 1 (1998): 42-49.