By Troy Graham
The Philadelphia Inquirer
CAMDEN, Penn. — The City of Camden prevailed yesterday in a federal lawsuit in which Camden police officers were accused of unlawfully arresting and beating a man at a Tweeter Center concert.
The jurors did find that officers wrongfully arrested and used excessive force on Steven Monaco. But they said Monaco failed to demonstrate that Camden police had a pattern of abuse and that they ignored his complaint, elements they had to find to side with him.
Monaco, now a 26-year-old pharmaceutical salesman from Glassboro, was arrested in 2002 at a Q102 concert at the Tweeter Center, which is now called the Susquehanna Bank Center.
He said from the stand that he had been in the Tweeter Center parking lot for about 15 minutes when a large fight broke out and police officers swept into the area.
He said he and his girlfriend began to leave the area, hand-in-hand, when he passed one of the officers.
“He stared at me right in my eyes and I had a sick feeling inside like something was going to happen,” Monaco said. “He said, ‘There he is. I think that’s him. Get him.’ ”
Monaco said he looked over his shoulder as the officer hit him in the nose with a night stick, and then several more officers tackled him to the ground and began beating him.
“I was scared for my life,” he testified, briefly choking up. “I was praying it would stop.”
Monaco had to have two surgeries to repair a severely broken nose, a tooth had been chipped and he suffered a herniated and bulging disk in his spine.
But Camden’s attorney, Mark Cieslewicz, said that if Monaco had been beaten by five or six officers with night sticks, he would have looked like “hamburger.”
He told the jury in his closing arguments that he believed Monaco had been tailgating and then got drawn into the fight that erupted.
“During the course of this trial, I developed a pretty strong feeling that Mr. Monaco was making this up,” he said. “I think somebody in this fight took a good swing at Mr. Monaco.”
Camden police have been accused of beating concertgoers in at least seven federal lawsuits filed since 2002.
The city has settled three of the suits encompassing 13 plaintiffs. One of those plaintiffs was a military policeman on leave.
Three other lawsuits are pending.
In the most explosive case, filed in April, Camden police have been accused of beating a 20-year-old Phoenixville man to death.
Brett Katzenmoyer was arrested in the Tweeter Center parking lot last summer. Police said he was resisting arrest and he tried to take an officer’s gun.
Katzenmoyer’s lawsuit said that he didn’t know why he was being arrested, and he was beaten while handcuffed.
Katzenmoyer visited two hospitals in the days after his arrest. His mother found him unconscious five days after the concert and he died. The lawsuit said Katzenmoyer suffered “severe tissue and muscle damage,” organ damage and a possible brain injury.
The city has denied the allegations.
After Monaco was arrested, he was given a summons for drinking in public. That charge later was dropped.
Monaco never made a complaint about the alleged beating to Camden police or any other agency, Cieslewicz noted.
Monaco’s lawyers filed a notice of intent to sue with the city in 2002 and a lawsuit in 2004. Camden police internal affairs launched an investigation in 2005.
Monaco was shown pictures of Camden officers, and he picked out seven as being involved in his arrest. He refused to give a statement to the officer who showed him the pictures, Cieslewicz said.
Of the seven officers he identified, six proved through time sheets that they weren’t working the night Monaco was arrested, and the seventh was stationed at a fixed post at the concert and did not respond to the fight.
Internal affairs closed the case after determining that none of the officers Monaco identified were involved in his arrest.
Monaco’s attorney, Shawn Huber, said that internal affairs never tried to find the actual officers who arrested his client, which proved the police had a “custom” of excessive force.
“They did it because they knew they could get away with it,” Huber said in his closing argument. “They didn’t fear an internal affairs investigation. This is Camden city. This is the way it’s done.”
The jurors disagreed, and Huber said his client would appeal their decision.
Copyright 2008 The Philadelphia Inquirer