By Brendan McCarthy
Times-Picayune
| Related Article: Grainy videotape raises questions; La. police say suspect tried to kill them |
NEW ORLEANS — The FBI has opened an investigation into whether New Orleans police beat a Central City man late last month after he allegedly pointed a gun at officers.
The New Orleans Police Department hasn’t opened its own formal internal investigation into the incident and hasn’t spoken to the man or to any witnesses, a spokesman said Thursday.
The case of Leroy Allen, 26, was made public last week by The Times-Picayune. It was brought to the newspaper’s attention by a couple who live nearby and who produced a grainy videotape of the incident, which they called a “blatant misuse of force.”
Allen also complained to jail officials that he had been beaten by police.
FBI spokeswoman Sheila Thorne confirmed Thursday that an investigation was opened by the bureau, but declined to say whether a citizen complaint prompted the probe or the agency chose to pursue it on its own.
The incident occurred on the night of Feb. 27 near Second and South Roman streets in a blighted and mostly vacant section of Central City.
On Monday -- six days after the newspaper made the case public -- police spokesman Bob Young offered the NOPD’s first response on the issue. Young said Superintendent Warren Riley had directed the Public Integrity Bureau to look into whether an internal inquiry into the “alleged beating” is needed.
Young said Thursday afternoon that a “preliminary investigation” is under way but that the case has not been formally opened and assigned a case number.
Garth Kiser and Sarah Handyside, who live nearby, said they heard a man screaming and pleading for help and videotaped a snippet. They said police officers hit the handcuffed man more than 20 times and slammed him into the door of a police cruiser.
The resulting grainy video depicts little other than silhouettes of men in front of police vehicle lights. At one point, someone picks a seemingly docile man up from the ground.
The accompanying audio is more suggestive: Slaps and screams are audible, along with the voice of a young man wailing, “Don’t hit me, please. Please, don’t hit me no more. Please. Please, don’t hit me.”
A police gist sheet filed at the time of Allen’s arrest states that Allen ran when he spotted the officers, pointed a gun at police and tried to fire, though the gun jammed.
Police caught Allen nearby. “A search insidental to arrest revealed one 9 mm bullet in his right rear pants pocket,” the report says.
The report does not say whether officers recovered the weapon. The NOPD later said a 9 mm gun was recovered, but declined to provide details. The officers involved were from the Special Operations Division, police have said.
Allen was booked with attempted first-degree murder, being a felon in possession of a firearm, illegal carrying a weapon and resisting arrest. A magistrate judge ordered Allen, who has a prior conviction for cocaine possession, held in lieu of $273,500 bail.
When he was booked into jail, Allen told the sheriff’s deputy working the receiving area that he had been kicked and hit in the mouth with a closed fist by the arresting officer, according to remarks noted at the bottom of the arrest register filed in magistrate court.
Kiser said Wednesday that he and his girlfriend didn’t file a complaint with the FBI. They were interviewed by agents from the agency who sought them out, he said.
The couple has said they did not witness events leading up to the arrest. Six police vehicles eventually arrived at the scene, they said. In addition to striking Allen, officers purposefully swung a police cruiser’s door open, slamming it into the man, the couple said.
They said the beating lasted five minutes and that the officers taunted the man.
Allen is scheduled to appear for a preliminary hearing in court March 24.
Copyright 2009 Times-Picayune