NEWS > 19 January 2007

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KATC - Lafayette,LA,USA
19 January 2007

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Incident report gives cops' ac

NEW ORLEANS -- According to the original police report of an incident in which an attorney says he was wrestled to the ground and beaten, the man _ and the officer who tried to stop him _ fell when he spun to face the officer on a wet street, pushing away the officer's hand.

Ronald Coleman has said police who mistook him for a pickpocket wrestled him to the ground, beat him and handcuffed him Dec. 30, and stopped beating him when he identified himself as an attorney.

Coleman, 25, a New Orleans-based lobbyist and a national legislative campaign coordinator for the activist group ACORN, has said the incident left him with a mild concussion, facial cuts, bumps on his head and bruised ribs _ and panic whenever a group of people walks toward him.

The New Orleans Police Department's Public Integrity Bureau is investigating seven officers, and have reassigned two of them to administrative duty.

The incident report, filed by Sgt. Jake Schnapp Jr. _ one of the two reassigned officers _ and recently released, gives the officers' version.

Schnapp, whose record includes repeated discipline for misconduct, and Officer Reynolds Rigney Jr., who joined the force in 204, remained on administrative desk duty Thursday, said Marlon Defillo, deputy chief of the Public Integrity Bureau.

"The Public Integrity Bureau as well as federal authorities are still in the process of investigating," Defillo said.

According to the incident report, Schnapp was among seven plainclothes officers walking together when an elderly man walked up and said his pocket had just been picked by a black man wearing all black clothes. It said the man told Schnapp he thought the plainclothes officer was a policeman because he had been speaking to a uniformed patrolman a few minutes earlier.

Moments later, the report states, Schnapp and the other investigators saw Coleman _ who has said he was wearing navy blue _ on the same street, wearing a black shirt and black shorts.

Two officers caught up with Coleman, who turned quickly and pushed away one officer's hand, Schnapp wrote. One officer tried to hold him, identifying himself as a police officer, the report said.

"The force in which Ronald Coleman turned, coupled with the fact that the ground was wet and it was raining, caused both the investigator and Ronald Coleman to fall to the ground," the report said.

Coleman has said the beating stopped once he identified himself as an attorney.

According to Schnapp's report, Coleman was on his back, "kicking, screaming, and flailing his arms" and repeatedly yelling, "Why are you all doing this to me?" while officers ordered him to "cease his resistance and submit to handcuffing."

The report said Coleman did so once he realized the men were police officers.

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Article sourced from

KATC - Lafayette,LA,USA19 January 2007

Incident report gives cops' ac

EiP Comments:

KATC - Lafayette,LA,USA
19 January 2007