Ex-Officer's Account of a Brutal Police Fraternity

URL:		http://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/30/nyregion/ex-officer-s-account-of-a-brutal-police-fraternity.html
TITLE:		Ex-Officer's Account of a Brutal Police Fraternity
SOURCE:		New York Times
DATE:		30 September 1993
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Following are excerpts from testimony to the Mollen Commission by Bernard Cawley, a former police officer who testified about assaulting drug suspects and innocent bystanders in his Bronx precinct. The excerpts were transcribed by The New York Times.

Q. After your graduation from the Police Academy, what was your first assignment?

A. I was assigned to the neighborhood stabilization unit in the 48th Precinct. It's called N.S.U. 7.

Q. N.S.U. 7?

A. Right.

Q. Could you explain to the commissioners what an N.S.U. is. What the neighborhood stabilization unit -- unit is?

A. N.S.U. is pretty much six months after the academy. It's on-the-job training. What they do is they put you on foot post in four different precincts that are in with the N.S.U. And you -- when you're not on a full post, if you're driving around with a detective, your answering radio runs in a marked police car. . . .

Q. Correct.

Q. While you were in the 48th Precinct N.S.U., Mr. Cauley, did you develop a nickname?

A. Yes, I did.

Q. What was that nickname?

A. The Mechanic.

Q. Can we have for the record where the 48th Precinct is located?

A. It's off the Cross -- its underneath the Cross Bronx Expressway in the Bronx.

Q. Your nickname was the Mechanic?

A. Yes, it was.

Q. And why were you given this nickname?

A. Because I used to tune people up.

Q. What do you mean tune people up?

A. It's a police word for beatin' up people.

Q. Did you beat people up who you arrested?

A. No. We just beat people up in general. If they're on the street, hanging around drug locations. Just -- It was a show of force.

Q. Why were these beatings done?

A. To show who was in charge. We were in charge, the police. . . .

Q. Mr. Cawley, who gave you this nickname, the Mechanic?

A. My sergeant.

Q. So your sergeant was aware of these beatings?

A. Yes, he was.

Q. Were other police officers in the 48th Precinct N.S.U. giving people beatings as well?

A. There was a few of them, yes.

Q. And the sergeant was aware of those beatings as well?

A. Yeah, pretty the sergeant encouraged it, because he pretty much -- he rewarded the three guards that were into it: the two other officers and myself. He would reward us: Instead of putting us on full posts in the winter or something like that, we would drive around in a car with him or the other detectives.

Q. So you were rewarded for this aggressive behavior and for beating people?

A. Yes.

Q. And you were rewarded and give his name by the sergeant who was supposed to mold your character to a certain extent to be a police officer.

A. That's correct.

. . .

Q. Mr. Cawley, would you please tell the commissioners about your experience on your first midnight tour in the 46th Precinct?

A. All right, so on the midnight about 2 o'clock in the morning, we met at Tremont and Jerome Avenue. There was about seven police cars, blue-and-whites. And they told us, they said, listen we're going over to this building. . . . And they said pretty much everybody in that building, either they're drug dealers or they belong to a motorcycle gang. They said when we get there, who's ever hanging out they have no right hanging out at this hour of the night. They said when you go up there just start hitting people.

So we start driving over to Davidson and 176th Street; we came on the block in all different directions. We got out of the car. And as soon as we got out of the police car, the seven cars, we just started beating people. We went into the building, who was ever in the building got beat. A lady was coming down the stairs with a big radio in her hand. They smashed the radio with a nightstick. They threw her down a flight of stairs. It was just anybody who was in that building or right in front of the building got beat that night.