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NYPD officer who repeatedly punched an unarmed man in Harlem convicted of attempted assault
By
Samantha Max
Published Jan 22, 2025
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Via NYPD body camera video
By
Samantha Max
Published Jan 22, 2025
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A former NYPD officer accused of punching an unarmed man 13 times while on duty is guilty of attempted assault, a Manhattan judge announced Wednesday.
Christian Zapata, 37, repeatedly hit Jerome Collins in the face and neck when responding to a December 2022 call about a child with special needs in emotional distress, according to court records and body camera footage of the incident. Zapata’s attorney said at trial that his client was using a reasonable amount of force to control an “escalating situation.” But prosecutors argued that Zapata was unnecessarily violent toward a man who didn’t pose a physical threat.
Justice Curtis Farber acted as both the judge and the jury in Zapata’s case. He found Zapata guilty of a less serious crime than the third-degree assault charge he was indicted on. The judge sentenced Zapata to time served, which means he won’t face jail time, according to the Manhattan district attorney’s office. Prosecutors asked for a 60-day jail sentence.
The conviction is an uncommon outcome for an officer accused of using excessive force. Researchers have found that such allegations rarely lead to criminal charges, let alone convictions. Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg has committed to prosecuting law enforcement officers who break the law, and his office’s Police Accountability Unit has convicted more than 20 people since he took office.
“Police officers have challenging jobs and I have the utmost respect for our men and women in uniform, but the use of unlawful force cannot be permitted,” Bragg said in a statement. “Holding members of law enforcement accountable when they break the law is essential for public safety and upholding the public’s trust, and I thank our team of prosecutors for their hard work to secure this conviction.”
Zapata’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the judge’s decision.
Zapata was demoted after the incident and has since left the department, according to the NYPD.
Zapata and other officers were responding to a call inside a Harlem apartment building when tensions started to brew with Collins, attorneys said at trial. Collins' son — whom he was visiting — and the boy's mother lived in the apartment with a child with special needs, according to court papers. Body camera footage shows Collins repeatedly asking officers to wear face masks, but the officers denied his requests. The police told him that he was impeding their work, asked him to leave and began to nudge him down the hallway.
Collins swatted one of the officers away, the video shows, and then Zapata punched him again and again, until another officer stepped in.
Assistant DA Tavish DeAtley said in a closing statement last week that Zapata was “out of control” and had no justification to punch a man who can be seen in body camera footage holding his hands up and palms open in surrender.
“Nothing Mr. Collins actually did could possibly have led the defendant to reasonably believe he needed to pummel Mr. Collins the way he did,” DeAtley said.
Zapata’s defense attorney Andrew Quinn said in his closing statement that his client used a permissible amount of force to protect another officer. He also said that the punching only lasted for about 10 seconds.
“It was brief,” Quinn said. “It was forceful, as it’s allowed to be.”
Collins recently settled a civil lawsuit against the city for $300,000, according to his attorney, Neil Wollerstein. The lawyer called the criminal judge’s decision a “mixed bag.”
"At the very least, it holds Officer Zapata to some level of accountability,” Wollerstein said. “He now has a criminal conviction on his record."
But the attorney said he was disappointed that the judge didn’t sentence Zapata to any community service or an anger management class.
“It’s a slap on the wrist,” he said, adding: “How is that going to deter other officers from exhibiting such reprehensible conduct?”
The NYPD did not comment on the judge’s decision.
This story has been updated to include comment from Jerome Collins's civil lawyer.
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public safety
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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