By Tom Hays, The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) - A police officer who refused to arrest a homeless man in 2002 was put on probation Thursday for one year for disobeying an order.
Lawyers for Officer Eduardo Delacruz said he also was given a 30-day suspension without pay, a penalty he’s already served.
Delacruz, 39, drew support from homeless advocates who portrayed him as a conscientious objector to a crackdown on the city’s dispossessed. The officer, who had a clean disciplinary record, suggested his religious beliefs played a role in his refusal of a sergeant’s order to arrest a homeless man who was sleeping in a Manhattan parking garage.
“God is in control,” the 10-year veteran said during a recent police department hearing when asked what he was thinking at the time.
Delacruz could have been fired. But his police union lawyers argued that even giving him probation was unduly harsh.
Though disappointed with the decision, Delacruz was “happy he can continue his career as a police officer,” attorney Greg Longworth said.
Police officials had no immediate comment.
Delacruz’s lawyers accused his supervisors in a homeless outreach unit of trying to impose an illegal one-arrest-per-week quota. When he resisted, the bosses sought to “single him out for punishment and force him out of the unit,” defense papers said.
The officer never “acted dogmatically,” the papers said. “He simply on one occasion failed to arrest a homeless man when he felt he was being set up by his superiors.”
In a written decision finding Delacruz guilty, a department judge found that “by deciding which orders he would obey, the (officer) is treading on a slippery slope that would undermine the leadership and viability of the department, if unchecked.”