June 15, 1999
Beaten and Paralysed by Cops,Cut Off Medicaid,
Ignored by Press
Meet Max Antoine:
New Jersey's Louima
Is there a rationing policy by the press that
we are allowed only one atrocity against a Haitian per decade?
While the recent guilty plea of Justin Volpe in the Abner Louima
torture trial generated some headlines, an equally brutal incident
in Irvington, NJ, has passed by virtually without attention.
This case involves a gang of cops who forced their way without
probable cause into an apartment where a party was going on,
hurled racist language, beat up several guests and nearly killed
one of them, after he asked for their badge numbers. It also
involves complicit emergency medical teams who refused treatment
to the battered victims, a prosecutor's office that chose to
go after the victims rather than the cops and an utterly indifferent
press. In other words, a typical day on the streets in black
America.
On June 2, 1996, Marie D. Antoine, a Haitian
immigrant, was hosting a family birthday party at her apartment
in Irvington. Apparently, one of the neighbors called Irvington
police to complain about the noise. At 2 a.m., three Irvington
police officers, Phillip Rucker, Alfredo Aleman and Keith Stouch
arrived at the apartment and asked that the music volume be lowered.
The stereo was turned off.
But 15 minutes later the police returned and forced their way
inside. The officers entered without a warrant and without the
consent of Marie Antoine.
When they came through the door, one of the
officers allegedly yelled, "Get the fuck out, the party's
over!" The officers searched the apartment, apparently for
drugs, with flashlights. Frustrated that the guests did not immediately
begin to leave, the police began pushing and shoving people out
the door. At this point, Marie Antoine's brother Max, a paralegal
who ran an accounting service, told the guests (most of whom
were Haitians) that they had the right to be there and that in
America the police weren't permitted to "act like the Ton
Ton Macoutes." He asked his sister, Marie, to write down
the officers' badge numbers so that he could file an official
complaint.
Officer Rucker apparently overheard Max Antoine's comments. According
to numerous witnesses at the apartment, Rucker pushed his way
through the crowd, knocking to the ground Marie (who was six
months pregnant at the time), and grabbed Antoine by the neck.
Rucker allegedly rammed Antoine's head into the wall. Then, guests
say, Antoine was hit in the head by a nightstick swung "in
a baseball-like fashion" by Officer Aleman.
Antoine dropped to the floor in agony. Now
all three cops were on top of him, and witnesses say that Officer
Stouch stomped on him while the other officers flailed away at
his head and body with their nightsticks. Several of the guests
tried to intervene, but they were shoved aside.
Meanwhile, the three cops dragged Max out
of the apartment and into the hall, where he was kicked and beaten
again. Marie Antoine tried to stop the abuse, asking, "What
are you doing to my brother?" According to Marie, Officer
Rucker turned to her and said, "I will teach him about American
law." Max was then handcuffed and dragged down a flight
of stairs, screaming in pain, as his five year-old daughter,
Nelchael, watched in horror.
At the bottom of the stairs, witnesses report,
the police picked Antoine off the floor and shoved him through
the doorway, pushing his head through the glass pane on the storm
door. Max was then placed in the back of the police cruiser and
sprayed in the face with a burning chemical, most likely pepper
spray.
By this time, 10 more police officers arrived
on the scene. As in the Rodney King beating, none of them attempted
to stop the attacks on Antoine. Instead, they cordoned off the
area and sent all the guests inside the apartment.
Max Antoine's ordeal was far from over. When
he reached the police station, he repeatedly asked for medical
treatment. Instead, he was led across the lockup area and, still
handcuffed, thrown into a cell and beaten and kicked again. Antoine
says that when he asked to use the phone to call for an attorney,
one of the officers snapped, "Shut up and die like a man."
Despite the fact that he was bleeding profusely,
police didn't call the emergency medical team until after Max
Antoine had been booked. When the medics arrived, they refused
to give him any medical attention. Antoine, whose injuries were
numerous, excruciatingly painful and life-threatening, spent
two nights in jail before he was released to his family.
Antoine was taken to St. Barnabas Hospital,
where he was placed in intensive care. His injuries were serious
and debilitating. He sustained a fractured left eye socket, a
broken jaw, bowel and bladder damage and spinal injuries. Over
the next two years, he has undergone 18 surgeries, including
lumbar and spinal implants.
The beating left Max Antoine permanently disabled. He is now
paralyzed below the waist and blind in his left eye. He has suffered
brain damage and has lost sexual function. According to his wife,
Max is often depressed and suicidal. His medical bills are piling
up and he has no way to pay them off.
Antoine and several of the guests at his sister's
party lodged complaints with the Irvington Police Dept. and the
prosecutor's office. Ultimately, a grand jury was convened. But
the prosecutors never called any witnesses and no charges or
other disciplinary action was taken against the police officers.
The Antoines also sought the help of the Clinton
administration. However, the Justice Dept. has so far refused
to investigate the case.
Antoine, however, has been charged with resisting arrest and
assaulting a police officer. He is slated to go to trial on July
26.
Antoine and his family have filed a civil suit against the Irvington
police and the emergency medical service, saying his civil rights
were violated and that he received inadequate medical care. Certainly,
he has suffered awful ordeals because of the police beating.
For example, he had a neurotransmitter inserted in his spine
to stimulate his paralyzed muscles. This device must be replaced
every two years. He also needs continuing rehabilitation therapy.
These requirements and the initial operations have yielded a
medical bill thus far of $650,000. Medicaid has enabled Antoine
to take care of this bill, but now he faces the consequences
of Bill Clinton's deal with the Republicans on Medicaid "reform,"
which set a ceiling-which has now kicked in-of $1500 per year.
So he faces the likelihood that he won't be able to replace the
neurotransmitter, or even go to therapy. Such a journey requires
the hiring of a van able to take a person in a wheelchair. Rental
rates for these vehicles are high. Antoine's wife, says that
he uses up the $1500 in a month.
For their part, the Irvington police claim
that it's all Antoine's fault and that he incurred his injuries
while being taken from the apartment complex. If we are to believe
the cops, Antoine-handcuffed at the time-suddenly broke free
and threw himself through a glass storm door and then refused
medical treatment for two days.
What happened to Antoine is even worse that
the assault on Abner Louima, yet the indifference of the Justice
Dept. and of the New Jersey police to this outrage has been total.
CP
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