Professor Bennett Capers, director of Fordham Law’s Center on Race, Law and Justice, was quoted in Newsday in an article examining the arrest of Abel Alvarenga Vasquez and the use of police force.
Ten surveillance cameras and one cellphone recorded predawn events that led Hempstead Village police officers to arrest a landscape worker with enough force to perforate his small intestine — a disabling injury that saddled taxpayers with paying $4.5 million in damages.
From different points of view, the civilian recordings captured images and, at a crucial point, sounds of officers subjecting Abel Alvarenga Vasquez to unjustified force while arresting him for alleged disorderly conduct, according to two law enforcement experts who reviewed the videos and case documents at Newsday’s request.
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Bennett Capers served for 10 years in the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office, teaches criminal law at Fordham University Law School and directs Fordham’s Center on Race, Law & Justice. He challenged the DA’s finding that the arrest was lawful.
“They conveniently ignore that there must be probable cause for an arrest. Here, there was none, as evidenced not only by the video, but by the fact that the charges were dropped,” Capers wrote in an email.