BROCKTON, Mass.—Officers of the Brockton Police Department were in court earlier this month in a lawsuit that comes from their handling of a noise complaint in 2008.
A trail began this past week after four family members launched a civil suit against the officers in November 2011 alleging warrantless entry, excessive force, indifference to medical needs, assault and battery, and arrest without probable cause.
If the jury finds in favor, the plaintiffs could be awarded up to $2 million in punitive damages and compensation for injuries allegedly received as a result of the police action. The trial is being heard by Judge Judith Dein at the U.S. District Court in Boston.
The events of the night of 15 November 2008 are hotly disputed by members of the Barbosa family and the Brockton Police Department.
The plaintiffs in the case are Henriqueta, Manuel, Maria, and Angela Barbosa. Defendants named in the suit are officers Thomas Hyland, Jesse Drane, Brian Donahue, Steven Johnson, Frank Baez, Emanuel Gomes and Leon McCabe of the Brockton Police Department.
According to the plaintiff’s complaint, the Barbosas had gathered for a celebration at their home in Brockton. About 15 people gathered at the house that night—seven of them under nine years old—for the traditional Cape Verdean celebration known as a sete to mark the seventh day after the birth of Jezmany Andrade.
The owner of the house, then 50-year-old Henriqueta Barbosa, was washing dishes while her husband, then 56-year-old Manuel, and four of the young children were sleeping nearby. At around 11 p.m., Henriqueta saw two police officers—identified as officers Thomas Hyland and Brian Donahue—inside her home. She had not heard them announce their arrival or invited them in, and they did not have a warrant.
The officers were following up on a complaint about loud music received by the police department from one of the Barbosas’ neighbors.
In deposition testimony, Officer Hyland insists that when outside the home, he announced more than once that the police were there but received no response from anyone inside.
“When we got to the street, we were listening for music,” he said, “I got about a hundred feet away and I could hear, like, low, bass-sounding music.”
The plaintiffs’ complaint says the family was “shocked” at the officers’ claim to be there about the noise because they say their music wasn’t loud and family members were able to sleep despite the alleged volume of the music.
After announcing his arrival, Hyland claims someone said to him, “We’ll turn the music down, but we are going to just turn it up again when you leave.”
At this point, Hyland and Donahue entered the house.
In a deposition, Hyland says, “ . . . I did enter that house to stop the music because the time that it would take to obtain a search warrant to merely get into a house to quell a disturbance would be unreasonable . . . so I felt justified going into the house and merely having the music stopped or at least lowered.”
Hyland then went upstairs and asked a man who he claims was a DJ—wearing headphones and playing extremely loud music on turntables from large speakers on either side of him—to turn the music off. According to Hyland’s testimony, the speakers were around three feet high and standing on pedestals.
In a deposition, Henriqueta’s daughter—the mother of newborn Andrade, then 19-year-old Angela Barbosa—disputes the claim that there was a DJ playing loud music and says it was played “by a regular radio that was there. My mom’s old-fashioned radio that was there with, like, two small, little speakers . . . .”
The alleged DJ, Antonio DaVeiga, testified that he went upstairs to turn down the music as soon as he saw the lights of a police cruiser outside the house. He claims that by the time he got upstairs the police were already in the house and an officer was upstairs telling him to turn it all the way down, which he did.
The plaintiffs’ lawyer, Charles Kazarian, asked Hyland in deposition why he didn’t leave after the music had been shut off.
“Because I was already told that as soon as I do leave, it’s going to go up again anyway, so now I want to identify the owner of the house so that I can at least take some kind of legal position when the disturbance goes back up,” Hyland answered.
Hyland says he asked Henriqueta for her name and date of birth then told her that if she didn’t supply the information she was would be subject to arrest for “anticipatory breach of the peace.”
In deposition, Kazarian challenged Hyland on the alleged violation, asking, “Did you make that up?” Hyland answered that he had not, and that he believes it’s a crime on the commonwealth’s books.
In testimony, former Brockton police chief William Conlon described the crime of anticipatory breach of the peace as “. . . the same as disturbance of the peace only it’s quite evident that this is about to take place.”
Conlon also testified that the department’s policy on noise complaints in November 2008 was that officers should leave when the music is turned down.
At this point, Hyland alleges that someone said to him, “You don’t know what you’ve walked into.”
Officer Donahue also alleges that he felt the situation could get out of control and that John Andrade—Angela’s boyfriend and Jezmany’s father—asked him, “Why are you grilling me?”
Hyland then placed a call for support on his radio, and more members of the Brockton Police Department arrived and entered the home. Officers Michael Dube and Jesse Drane and Sergeants Mark Celia, Kenneth Lofstrom and Bryan Maker responded.
When the officers asked for identification from each individual in the house, family members began questioning the officers about their right to enter the home without consent or warrant.
The plaintiffs’ complaint alleges that the officers became enraged by the family’s question and began using derogatory and racist terms, calling “bitches,” “dumb hoes” and “immigrants” and telling them to “go back to your country.”
The Barbosa family is originally from Cape Verde—a volcanic island nation off the coast of west Africa—but they are naturalized U.S. citizens.
According to Angela’s testimony, “My baby’s father [John] told the police officers that they had no right to walk in there without knocking—that, you know, they didn’t have a warrant to walk inside the house. That’s the only thing I remember him telling the police.”
The officers then ordered all of the adults to leave the home, including homeowners Henriqueta and Manuel. However, the family claims this would have left the young children alone without adult supervision.
Henriqueta attempted to explain this to the officers in broken English.
According to Hyland, “I specifically remember [John] Andrade not moving, like he’s not leaving the residence. I pointed to him and specifically said to him, ‘It’s time to go,” and he folded his arms in front of him, shook his head side to side saying ‘no, ‘and retreated into that . . . galley kitchen.”
Asked by Kazarian what his legal basis was for insisting Andrade leave the house, Hyland testified, “He did not establish that he lived there, I was shutting the party down . . . .”
Hyland says he followed Andrade into the kitchen area, and is not certain whether he had handcuffed Andrade or not, when he felt a strong blow on the back of his head.
He alleges that he turned around to see Henriqueta holding a silverware strainer, which she had used to him hit in the head.
“As soon as Hyland and Donahue grabbed the male party to place him under arrest or escort him out, another female in the pantry area came up behind officer Hyland with a silverware strainer and cracked him right over the head with [it],” Office Jesse Drane testified.
This allegation is disputed by family members, none of whom testified this incident took place.
In deposition, Henriqueta instead claimed that Hyland fell. “When he puts the cuffs on John, he tripped. He went on top of me, and we fell [on] top of the dish washer,” she testified. Angela claims she witnessed Hyland trip and fall, as well.
At this point, the plaintiffs’ complaint alleges that Hyland grabbed Henriqueta and threw her against a wooden closet door before lifting her up and throwing her outside onto a wooden porch.
Defense counsel Stephen Pfaff asked Henriqueta in deposition if she was fighting with Hyland, to which she replied, “He would put me in his pocket. How could I fight with a person whose height would go almost to the roof of my house?”
Henriqueta was arrested. She alleges her arm was “black and blue” from where she was thrown against the door. Believing her arm to be broken, she claims she repeatedly requested that the handcuffs to be taken off of her.
When Angela Barbosa objected to the treatment of her mother, she was also arrested.
“When I’m standing outside the galley . . . peripherally, I can see who I recognize now as Angela Barbosa,” Hyland testified, “She’s approaching me angrily, very fast, and she whips what I thought was a red cell phone at my leg.”
“After we restrained—placed the female, older female under arrest for her actions, there was another female to my left yelling and screaming about something,” Drane testified, “All of a sudden she took out a phone, a cell that was in her hand, and she tossed it and hit one of the officers . . . .”
Angela denies she ran at Hyland or threw anything. Instead, she alleges that she was shoved against a stove by Drane when she questioned the officers’ arrest of her mother.
According to Angela, she was dragged by her hair to a police cruiser, causing pain on her scalp, and that the site of the incision from the caesarian section when she gave birth to Jezmany started to bleed.
Officers claim Angela said, “Fuck these pigs. Come on you guys. They can’t do this shit.” However, when Pfaff questioned her in deposition, Angela denied these claims.
Henrigueta, Angela and Andrade were taken to the Brockton Police Station on Commercial Street.
At the station, the plaintiffs’ complaint alleges that the officers concocted phony charges—including assault and battery with a dangerous weapon—in order to justify their actions at the Barbosa house.
After receiving word of the arrests, two of Henriqueta’s other daughters, Maria and Nilda Barbosa, went to the station to bail them out and ask for medical treatment for the women in custody.
Then 21-year-old Maria alleges that both of them sought information from an officer at the station, Steven Johnson, but claims that he ignored them, telling them only to come back in half an hour.
Maria claims she then asked for the names and badge numbers of the officers that had been in her parents’ home that night, and that Johnson then demanded she and her sister leave the station and return later.
Johnson disputes the claim and instead alleges that Maria was verbally abusive to officers at the station, including him, and that only then was she asked to leave.
“I told her the process of the booking area and how long it was going to take, and from her yelling and screaming and calling out obscenities at myself and the other officers that locked up her family, I didn’t believe she should have been there at the time,” Johnson testified, “She should have left and come back at a later time.”
Johnson alleges that Maria began screaming at the officers who arrested her family when she arrived at the station, calling them “white fucking pigs.”
Maria claims she insisted on waiting inside the station, as it was only going to take half an hour to process her family members.
The plaintiffs’ complaint alleges that this enraged Johnson, who came out from behind the window screaming, “You stupid bitch! I told you to leave!”
Johnson allegedly pushed Maria to the exit. Once outside, Johnson allegedly closed his fist and swung three times at Maria.
It’s alleged that Johnson then dragged her back into the station, got behind her, slammed her down onto a metal bench and handcuffed her with the assistance of several other officers.
The defense argues Johnson arrested Maria with the assistance of only one other officer, Frank Baez, because she was being disruptive.
The plaintiffs allege Johnson also grabbed Maria’s head and slammed it on the metal bench and punched her in the face during her arrest, resulting in severe cuts.
In response to this alleged brutality, Maria testified that she called the officers “woman beaters,” to which the officers allegedly told her, “Shut the fuck up or that will happen to the other side of your face.”
Video surveillance tape from the lobby of the Brockton Police Station is missing and will not be submitted into evidence during trial.
Maria was then handcuffed, along with her mother and sister, to a metal bar in the station’s garage rather than in a cell.
There the three women allege they were subject to constant harassment and verbal abuse by police officers.
Maria alleges she was called an “animal. She also claims they were all told to go “call Obama” and to “go back to your country.” Another officer allegedly told them, “I hate you people . . . Cape Verdean people.”
The plaintiffs’ complaint claims that Nilda and Maria called an ambulance for Henriqueta and Angela while at the station, but that the ambulance was cancelled by police officers.
An ambulance was later called by a female police officer who examined the injuries sustained by the women, and they were taken to the emergency room directly from the station.
Court records don’t identify what happened to Angela’s boyfriend, John Andrade, at the station, and he is not a plaintiff in the case.
Maria claims she suffered severe trauma to her eye during her arrest by Johnson, and that she continues to suffer migraines and facial twitching as a result. She claims she has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and post-concussive headache syndrome (PCHS).
Henriqueta claims she suffered an injury to her shoulder that caused her to miss two weeks of work and now requires surgery.
Angela claims she needed immediate medical attention for abdominal bleeding and has also been diagnosed with cervical myalgia. Also all three women claim they suffer emotional harm.
Though he was not physically harmed, Henriqueta’s husband, Manuel,, claims to suffer mental and emotional injuries as a result his wife and daughters’ arrest.
In a summary judgment by Judge Dein, the plaintiffs agreed to dismiss their claims against former Brockton police chief William Conlon; sergeants Bryan Maker, Kenneth Lofstrum and Mark Celia; and officers Michael Dube and Anthony Giardini. They are no longer named in the lawsuit.
A number of evidence exhibits are expected to be shown at trial, including Maria’s criminal record, Angela and Henriqueta’s criminal dispositions from Brockton District Court, medical records and bills for all three women, document from the Brockton Police Department’s Internal Affairs Divisions, and the three women’s booking photos.
This article originally appeared at Open Media Boston. Reprinted with permission.
–Jonathan Adams
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