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Former NYPD officer testifies that he punched homeless woman because he was ‘angry’
By
Samantha Max
Published Aug 31, 2023
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By
Samantha Max
Published Aug 31, 2023
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A former NYPD officer on trial for repeatedly punching a homeless woman in a Bronx jail cell in 2019 testified on Thursday that he “lost control” after the woman spit on him.
Luis Marte was fired last year after the police department found that he used excessive force in the incident. The Bronx district attorney’s office indicted him on assault and official misconduct charges with a maximum sentence of 16 months to four years on the top charge against him. Prosecutors also said he lied about what happened on police paperwork. Justice Ralph Fabrizio — not a jury — will decide the case.
In court Thursday, Marte told Fabrizio that he was monitoring the cells in the 44th Precinct in the Bronx when officers from the city’s Department of Homeless Services brought in a woman from a nearby shelter. When she arrived at the precinct, she was yelling so much that a man detained in one of the cells tried to climb out and hit her, Marte said.
Marte said the woman was escorted to another cell in the back, where she continued to scream. He said she called him a racial slur, a “bald f---” and a “fat f---,” but that he remained calm because he was used to being called names as a police officer.
“Just another day,” he said.
Then, Marte said, the woman tried to spit on him while he was closing the cell door. He said he told her sternly not to spit on him — that he was an NYPD officer and he would treat her differently than the officers from the shelter system.
But after he closed the gate, he said, the woman spit again, this time hitting him above his eyebrow. He said he felt belittled as her saliva trickled down his cheek.
“I feel like that’s the nastiest thing you can do to a human being,” Marte said on the stand.
Marte said he had never been spat on before, and it set him off.
Surveillance footage captured Marte unlocking the gate, walking into the cell and slapping the woman in the face. She kicked him. Then he punched her again and again. Prosecutors said she was curled up in the fetal position.
“I was angry,” he said. “I lost control. I was very upset.”
Marte said he couldn't remember how many times he had punched the woman, but the video showed him hitting her about 10 times. He said he had punched her in the arms, not the face, because he said he wasn’t trying to harm her.
Eventually, he testified, the woman said she was sorry and Marte stopped hitting her. According to NYPD records, the woman laughed and said he “hit like a b----.” A supervisor who heard the commotion came over and told the officer to leave. Then he went to the bathroom and scrubbed the spit off his face, which he said felt “like glue” that he couldn’t get off.
Marte said officers are trained to take precautions not to get spit on, because it could make them sick. His voice caught as he explained that he was worried about contracting hepatitis C or tuberculosis and bringing it home, where he cares for his mother and three daughters.
Marte testified that as he washed his face, he told his supervisor, Sgt. Armando Colon, that the woman spit on him, he slapped her and she kicked him. He didn’t mention the punches. Neither did Colon when he later filled out a form that police are required to complete when someone uses certain kinds of force.
Prosecutors said the document was filled with false statements, because Marte didn’t share the full story. But Marte said his supervisor never asked follow-up questions about what happened, and that the NYPD’s system at the time didn’t provide space for officers to write a narrative.
Colon, who testified earlier in the trial that he has been disciplined multiple times for failing to properly supervise his subordinates, said he didn’t interview other officers in the precinct or review surveillance footage before filling out the paperwork.
The woman was later taken to the hospital, after she started hitting her head against the gate and taking off her clothes. Marte said when that started happening he realized she was an “emotionally disturbed person” — a non-clinical term the NYPD uses to describe someone in mental distress. He said she did not sustain injuries from his punches.
Marte said he was temporarily suspended without pay after the incident and then placed on modified duty in the Manhattan courts.
Deputy Commissioner of Trials Jeff S. Adler, who recommended Marte’s termination in a report to then-Commissioner Keechant Sewell, said Marte could have faced punishment of as little as 10 days for non-deadly force that didn’t cause injuries. But he said he had to consider the aggravating factors, including “improper, retaliatory motive” and his pending criminal charges in the Bronx.
Adler wrote the most troubling factor was how “unhinged” Marte acted during this encounter with a homeless woman in the department’s custody.
The judge acknowledged that the statements the woman made were “verbally demeaning” and that she provoked him by yelling and spitting. But he said Marte’s reaction “demonstrated a disturbing lack of self-control” and failed to de-escalate the situation. He also noted that Marte, who was 5-foot-10 and about 225-230 pounds at the time, violently beat the woman “as she sat defenseless on the bench, absorbing the punishing blows.”
“His actions served no legitimate police purpose, and were completely unacceptable from a uniformed member of this department,” Adler wrote.
Sewell signed off on Marte’s firing in October 2022.
Marte joined the NYPD in 2006. According to Adler’s report, he received one medal for meritorious police duty and his supervisors rated him as “exceeds expectations” in his 2019, 2020 and 2021 performance evaluations. He had also been docked 13 vacation days in 2015 for letting his NYPD parking permit get copied.
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Samantha Max
Samantha reports on whether New Yorkers feel safe and whether the institutions that are supposed to protect them are working. Before coming to WNYC/Gothamist, she spent three years covering the criminal justice system in Tennessee for Nashville Public Radio. Her reporting on Nashville's police department received multiple awards, including the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize. Samantha was also part of the inaugural class of Report for America, a service journalism program that sends up-and-coming reporters to local newsrooms across the country. She is a Northwestern University grad, a Baltimore native and fluent in Spanish. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal: samanthamaxwnyc.93.
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