Lawyer: York police should take video brutality accusation seriously
Daily Record/Sunday News
York, PA -
The video is shaky, apparently recorded in the early morning hours on a city street illuminated only by streetlights and the headlights and flashing lights of police cars.
In the video, it appears that nine York City Police officers are taking a suspect into custody. At one point, the suspect, hands cuffed behind his back, turns away from the camera and something happens.
"It's clear to me," said Clarence Allen, the York attorney representing the suspect in the video, former state boxing champ Alfredo Montanez Jr.
What's clear to Allen is that the police officer "violently" struck Montanez while the suspect's hands were handcuffed behind his back.
The video, posted on YouTube, has spread through York and has caused tensions to flare between police and the community, Allen said. He called a news conference Friday morning to call for a complete and impartial investigation to diffuse those tensions.
"Don't give me a whitewashed investigation," Allen said. "Don't pour water on me and tell me it's raining. Don't bring in some expert and pay him a million dollars to say what I see on that tape didn't happen and was an optical illusion."
York City Police Chief Wes Kahley said Thursday that police "really don't know what happened at this point" and are investigating. He added police would like to obtain a better copy of the video from the person who recorded it.
Efforts to reach Kahley for further comment Friday were unsuccessful.
The video depicts Montanez's arrest Aug. 6 in the 700 block of East Market Street.
Police had received a call about a man with a gun outside a bar in the same block at 2:22 a.m. When an officer pulled up to Market and Sherman streets, he spotted a man who matched the description provided by the dispatcher walking west on Market Street, police said.
According to an affidavit of probable cause, Montanez ran and the police officer, accompanied by three other officers who had arrived about the same time, gave chase. When he was cut off by the police car, Montanez slipped and fell. A gun that had been in the waistband of his pants fell to the pavement as three officers wrestled him to the ground, according to the affidavit. The gun had been reported stolen in Springettsbury Township in June, police said.
The affidavit states that Montanez resisted arrest and yelled, "It's not my gun! It's not my gun!"
At that point, according to the affidavit, an officer stunned Montanez with a Taser, and he was taken into custody. When police searched Montanez, they found a small rock of what appeared to be crack cocaine in his pocket, along with a small packet containing marijuana, according to court documents.
Montanez, 27, was charged with receiving stolen property, illegal possession of a firearm, carrying a firearm without a license, resisting arrest and possession of crack and marijuana. He was placed in York County Prison, where he remains, in lieu of $20,000 bail.
Montanez - who boxed under the nickname "The Tornado" and was, at one time, ranked 10th in the nation - is no stranger to police. He has a criminal history that includes drug charges, according to court records.
In 2008, a York County grand jury indicted him in the Sept. 26, 2004, killing of 16-year-old Bart Rohrbaugh Jr., who was gunned down about 11:40 p.m. near Pine and Walnut streets in York, less than a block from his home. Those charges were dismissed in 2009 for lack of evidence.
Allen said the current charges Montanez faces, and the history, is irrelevant to the investigation into the video.
"What's relevant is that this person was arrested on those charges and this person was struck violently while his hands were handcuffed behind his back for no reason at all," Allen said.
Allen said the video came to his attention Tuesday and he immediately turned it over to York County District Attorney Tom Kearney who, in turn, referred the case to York City Police. Allen said he hoped the state police internal affairs division would investigate the matter.
Allen also said he hoped the officers involved in Montanez's arrest would come forward and publicly tell what happened that morning. He said police often ask members of the public to come forward when they are conducting investigations and that it is only fair to expect police to do the same during a probe of such public importance.
As a criminal defense attorney, Allen said, he has had a number of clients over the years allege police had struck or beaten them. When this case surfaced, he said, some of those clients called him to say, "I told you this happened."
The York City Human Relations Commission has also received a number of similar calls, executive director Stephanie Seaton said.
"Obviously," she said, "there have been tensions in the community regarding the York City Police Department."
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York City Police Chief Wes Kahley said the video was sent to police Monday.
"We really don't know what happened at this point," he said. "We're investigating the allegation and interviewing the people we need to interview to determine what actually took place."
Kahley said that the video needs to be "cleaned up" to get a better look at everyone involved, and also needs to be examined to make sure it wasn't altered in any way.
He also said that police would like to speak with whoever shot the video.
"That would be very helpful and we're trying to identify who that person is," he said. "We'd really like them to come forward to provide us with a better copy of the video."
The video, posted to the site Sunday under the channel name "amonie212," is shot at night and is out-of-focus and jittery. The location is not identified, but vehicles in the video appear to have the markings of York City Police cruisers.
Taken from a second- or third-floor window, the video opens as a group of police are gathered around a man who appears to be in handcuffs.
About 19 seconds in, as police are leading the man to a police cruiser, one of the officers moves suddenly near the man and someone on the other end of the video said, "He slit him."
The other officers in the video don't appear to react to the officer's actions.
The man cannot be seen as the officer is moving, but those leaving comments on the video were quick to label it an example of police brutality.
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