City Pays Settlement in 1995 Police Shooting Case

New York Pays Settlement to Families of Two Men Shot by Police in 1995 - NYTimes.com

City Pays Settlement in 1995 Police Shooting Case

By ROBERT D. McFADDEN

Fourteen years after two young robbery suspects were slain in a barrage of 28 police bullets as they lay on the floor of a Bronx apartment, New York City agreed on Friday to pay the victims’ families $1.15 million to settle a $20 million lawsuit that accused two detectives of inexplicable, execution-style killings.

The settlement was reached by lawyers for the city and the families as a two-week trial drew to a close in the civil division of State Supreme Court in the Bronx. Both sides had completed a presentation of evidence and rested their cases, but no verdict had been rendered by the six-member jury.

The case — one of the most notorious of a series of police shootings during the Giuliani administration that included the killing of Amadou Diallo in 1999 — led to investigations by city and federal officials, protest demonstrations and a verbal confrontation between the mother of a victim and Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani on a radio call-in program.

It also generated a 2002 documentary film, “Justifiable Homicide.” The police concluded that the shootings were legally justified, saying the detectives felt they were in imminent danger. A grand jury declined to issue an indictment.

The shootings involved two veteran detectives, Patrick J. Brosnan and James Crowe, who had been bodyguards for Mr. Giuliani during his 1993 mayoral campaign, and two youths with criminal records, Anthony Rosario, 18, and Hilton Vega, 21, cousins who, along with Freddie Bonilla, a companion who was wounded in the shootings, were all armed with semiautomatic pistols.

At the time of the shootings, in the ensuing investigations and during the trial, the two sides offered drastically different versions of what happened in the apartment at 1740 Grand Avenue, in the Morris Heights section, shortly after 11 p.m. on Jan. 12, 1995.

The city said the tenants, Jorge and Hermilinda Rodriguez, had called the police to report that Mr. Rosario and Mr. Vega had forced their way in the previous night and stolen $50, and said they expected them back a night later for more. The detectives — who retired on disabled status after the shootings — staked out the apartment the next night and confronted Mr. Rosario, Mr. Vega and Mr. Bonilla when they showed up.

Detective Brosnan, with two revolvers, and Detective Crowe, with a semiautomatic handgun, screamed at the men to get down on the floor. The three went down, but a major point of dispute was the position of the suspects when the shooting started. During the trial, the officers testified that all three were lying face up, contradicting earlier depositions that they were face down.

The officers said Mr. Rosario rolled to his side, drew a large silver gun and aimed it at Detective Crowe. Mr. Rosario was shot first, and the detectives said they opened fire on Mr. Vega after he grabbed a gun on the floor. Mr. Rosario was hit by 14 bullets, 6 of them in the back, and Mr. Vega was hit with 8 bullets, 5 in the back, 1 in the buttocks, 1 in the back of the head and 1 in an arm, autopsy reports showed.

Seth Harris, a lawyer for the victims’ families, challenged the officers’ account in cross-examinations and testimony by Mr. Bonilla, and introduced forensic evidence that indicated many shots were fired into victims who were face down. He also introduced police tests showing that, while each of the victims had been armed, none of their weapons had been fired and none had had a round in the chamber.

To inject a bullet into the chamber of a semiautomatic pistol, he said, the slide of the gun must be drawn back and released, an action that he said not only took time but “required both hands and some force,” a combination that he called highly improbable to execute while lying down and covered at gunpoint.

“It would be suicide by cop,” he said in an interview. “The police used excessive force. There is no logical evidence that any of the boys drew their weapons.” Mr. Harris also insisted that the victims went to the scene to collect a debt, not commit a robbery, adding: “They made the mistake of bringing weapons.”

The victims’ families issued no statement after the settlement, which was approved by Justice Alan S. Saks.

Fay Leoussis, chief of the tort division for the New York City Law Department, which defended the case, said: “We believe our police officers acted appropriately when confronted with three armed gunmen after being called by a man in fear of his life. However, we have agreed to resolve these cases in light of the uncertainties of litigation.”

SOURCE:NYTIMES.COM