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Lawsuit Proceeds Against Cops Accused Of Fatal Beating In Staten Island
By
Nathan Tempey
Published Mar 31, 2016
Modified Apr 1, 2016
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By
Nathan Tempey
Published Mar 31, 2016
Modified Apr 1, 2016
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Update April 1st:An earlier version of this story stated, based on court documents, that NYPD Captain Ludwig Romero was present for the arrest and alleged beating of Irving Mizell in 2013. Lawyers for Mizell's family placed Romero at the scene along with other officers in the lawsuit they filed in July 2014 and subsequent court papers, but they are now in the process of removing him from the case because, according to the Captains Endowment Association union, Romero's only connection to the arrest was that he signed off on a voucher for Mizell's property, and he was not on duty when the arrest took place. The story has been updated to reflect this.
On March 7th, 2013 four NYPD officers responded to a call of a man violating a protective order outside a woman's apartment in the Richmond Terrace public housing development in St. George.
The officers arrested 52-year-old Irving Mizell at the scene at around 6:30 p.m., and according to a lawsuit filed by Mizell's daughter, Shandrica Edwards-El, dragged him down seven flights of stairs, beating him along the way.
The lawsuit claims that there were several working elevators that the officers could have taken, but that they chose the stairs knowing that NYCHA buildings don't have cameras in the stairwells. The suit claims further that at the neighborhood's 120th Precinct Mizell made repeated pleas for medical care, but the officers "intentionally [denied] or [delayed] access to medical care, and intentionally [interfered] with the treatment once prescribed."
Paramedics arrived to drive Mizell to Richmond University Medical Center in an ambulance shortly before 9 p.m., and doctors at the hospital pronounced him dead on arrival, the suit says. Mizell suffered head, neck, back, and body injuries, and doctors declared the death the result of those injuries, according to the lawsuit.
The Medical Examiner's Office, however, found that his death was accidental, caused by heart failure brought on by a heart defect and exacerbated by muscle relaxers and alcohol in his system.
Thomas Giuffra, one of Mizell's family's lawyers, told the Daily News:
"To say his death was an ‘accident’ is absurd. It’s shocking to me that this could happen in New York City in the 21st century."
(Destinfabuleaux_/Flickr)
The Staten Island Advance reported that Mizell had a troubled past, having served three terms in state prison for drug dealing and weapons charges in the 1980s and 1990s. The paper also found that the Civilian Complaint Review Board substantiated complaints against three of the officers involved in Mizell's arrest, ruling that two abused their authority by refusing to get treatment for him and a third, Todd Craven, used excessive force and gave a false statement.
Speaking to the Advance, Mizell's brother George said that Irving had chronic health problems, and that he knew his brother had been beaten when he went to identify his body.
"He was in bad physical condition. He was an alcoholic. He had diabetes. He had high blood pressure, and he was in no condition whatsoever for them to even hit him," George Mizell said. "How can you do that? That's like seeing a bird in the street with a broken wing and then stepping on it. How cruel can you be?"
George Mizell compared his brother's death to that of Eric Garner, killed in the same neighborhood, by officers from the same precinct.
"My brother was complaining he couldn't breathe. He was crying, actually screaming he couldn't breathe, and, you know, his cries fell on deaf ears, just like Mr. Garner's, and he died in that precinct," he said.
In a response to the lawsuit filed last spring, lawyers for the city blamed Mizell for his own death (as they typically do in these kinds of cases), writing, "Any injury alleged to have been sustained by plaintiff resulted from plaintiff’s own culpable or negligent conduct or that of a third party and was not the proximate result of any act of the defendants."
City lawyers also argued that the four officers were acting in their official capacity and therefore should have immunity from being sued as individuals. The case is ongoing, and Edwards-El's lawyers have retained experts on toxicology, police practices, and forensic pathology, according to court documents..
Tagged
120th precinct
70th precinct
alcoholism
civil rights
fatal beating
flatbush
irving mizell
lawsuit
nycha
nypd
police brutality
police misconduct
protective order
richmond terrace
st. george
staten island
Nathan Tempey
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