By Matt Birkbeck
The Morning Call
PHILADELPHIA- Five Bethlehem police officers used excessive force to restrain a man high on crack cocaine who killed a drug dealer with a samurai sword and set him on fire, a federal jury ruled Tuesday night.
The verdict, after four hours of deliberation, stunned officers Matthew Crenko, Matthew Lazur, David Strawn, William Kissner and Louis Csaszar, and surprised Senior U.S. District Judge John P. Fullam, who called it “remarkable.”
Sonny Thomas claimed he didn’t resist police efforts to handcuff him, and jurors found the officers violated his constitutional rights when they punched and kicked him that night in January 2005.
Thomas, 50, who testified he suffered bruises and recurring migraine headaches as a result of the violent scuffle, sought $35 million in damages but was awarded $1.
The jury found that five other officers named in the suit -- Jeremy Alleshouse, John Iatarola, Mark DiLuzio, Moses Miller and Ronald Brazinski -- did not use aggressive force or violate Thomas’ Fourth, Fifth and 15th Amendment rights of due process and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures.
“There’s nothing the officers couldn’t have done differently,” said their attorney, John Gonzalez of King of Prussia, Montgomery County.
Thomas, a Marine Corps veteran who worked for a Bethlehem concrete company, was sentenced to life in prison after he was convicted in January of first-degree murder.
He killed Carlos Garcia, 19, of Bethlehem on Jan. 21, 2005, after a dispute over drugs in Thomas’ apartment on the second floor of a rooming house at 540 Broadway.
Thomas testified he had smoked 12 rocks of crack cocaine during the four hours before stabbing Garcia more than 80 times with a 4-foot-long samurai sword.
When police arrived at the grisly scene, they testified, they found Garcia’s body face down on the floor with the sword sticking out of his back and his clothing ablaze.
Thomas stood nearby, police said, walking in circles with clenched fists. When he refused orders to lie on the floor, officers approached him with handcuffs, setting off a five-minute scuffle.
Ten officers tried to restrain Thomas, with five testifying they alternately kicked, punched and hit him with their batons and flashlights before they finally placed his flailing arms in three sets of handcuffs looped together.
In his suit, filed in July 2005 against 12 officers, Thomas claimed he did not resist the officers and they subsequently beat him without provocation. Claims against two officers, Michael Manfredo and Kevin Conrad, were dropped Monday.
The case is the second in two years in which Bethlehem police officers were deemed to have used excessive force. In 2004, a federal jury found that police overreacted during the fatal 1997 John Hirko Jr. drug raid. The city later agreed to pay $7.89 million to settle the case.
Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan, reached after a budget hearing Tuesday night, called the officers’ actions in the Thomas case “truly heroic” and said he was confident the verdict would be reversed.
“That Mr. Thomas sustained no injuries is a testament of restraint for the officers who walked into that room,” Callahan said.
“Imagine the scene. They walk into a room with a burning body that has a samurai sword sticking out of it. They holster their weapons and apprehend the suspect with their hands. I don’t know too many people who would act with that restraint.”
Police Commissioner Randall Miller said after the verdict that no discipline was ever considered for the officers because they did nothing wrong and acted “with professionalism.”
Miller and Callahan said they would discuss the verdict with officers today.
Thomas testified Monday that after he killed Garcia, he asked the son of the building’s landlord for a cell phone to call police. Told that police were on the way, Thomas said, he retreated to his one-room apartment and locked the door, fearful of two other drug dealers lurking downstairs.
When police arrived, Thomas said, they immediately pounced on him and punched, kicked and “stomped him.” When he was taken outside in 15-degree weather, he was beaten again, he said, with his head driven into the sidewalk.
Two witnesses testified they never saw Thomas beaten outside the rooming house, and police maintained they kicked and punched him in a dire bid to restrain him.
Sgt. Kissner testified that Thomas was enraged and about to break free from other officers when he kicked Thomas four times in the chest. “He was out of control,” Kissner said.
Lt. Strawn testified that he punched Thomas three times on the right side of the neck when Thomas carried several officers within feet of the samurai sword in Garcia’s back. “I thought he was close to the sword,” Strawn said.
But during closing arguments, defense attorney Kristina Evans, one of three attorneys from Dechert LLP in Philadelphia representing Thomas, questioned why it took 10 officers to restrain Thomas, who stood 5 feet, 6 inches tall and weighed 160 pounds.
“Five officers held him while five hit him,” Evans said.
Gonzalez argued that the officers did everything within department guidelines, and said after the verdict, which was delivered at 6:30 p.m., that he filed two motions with the court seeking to dismiss the decision based on lack of evidence.
But for the five officers who testified they hit Thomas, the jury of six women and two men thought otherwise, prompting Judge Fullam to comment on the jury’s decision. He called it a “remarkable verdict that will be addressed again in time.”
Gonzalez said he expects Fullam to rule on his motions within a week.
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