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Abbate is 6-foot-1 and 250 pounds. Karolina is 5-foot-4 and 115 pounds. Other men in the bar watched passively as Abbate kicked Karolina, grabbed her hair, slammed her against the bar, threw her on the floor and punched her repeatedly as she tried to get up, the videotape shows. One man appeared to make a cell phone call. Karolina suffered bruises on her arms, shoulders, legs and head. She is suffering headaches and nausea because of her injuries, said Ekl, who plans to file a lawsuit in the next few weeks. Karolina said the attack felt like it lasted 15 minutes "She wasn't thinking about the fact that nobody was coming to my assistance," Ekl said. "She was just trying to protect herself." Karolina, a Polish immigrant with a 16-month-old son and a husband who works construction, bartended at Jesse's Shortstop Inn for about three months and held a second job at another bar. Patrons knew Abbate was a cop, but Karolina didn't until after the beating, Ekl said. On Wednesday night, as patrons watched the video on TV news of Abbate's arrest, they fell silent, and one exclaimed, "I can't believe this. It happened right here!" Abbate liked to drink pints of beer with a shot. He often griped about the volume of the TV One man said he told Abbate to relax during one of his rants about the volume on July Fourth last year. Abbate pulled out his badge and said, "You're not old enough to be in here" and threw a plastic bowl of pretzels at him, said the man, who said he feared giving his name. Howard Zmijewski, who grew up in the neighborhood but lives in Cicero, recalls Abbate shoving a homeless man who came into the bar looking for bus change. Abbate berated him, Zmijewski said. A patron named Michael defended Abbate: "Look, he's a good kid, a good guy." But Michael was shouted down by others, including one man who called Abbate a "train wreck waiting to happen." Abbate graduated from Gordon Tech and earned a bachelor's degree from Northeastern Illinois University, said his attorney, Will Fahy. "He has never been suspended or disciplined by the Chicago Police Department," Fahy said.
A Melbourne (Florida) police officer was fined for making an illegal U-turn that put a 69-year-old Palm Bay woman in the hospital with a broken hip, broken arm and neck and back injuries. Officer Steve Sigety paid a $121.50 fine last week after being cited for failing to use a designated lane. Catherine Winstead remained in critical condition at Holmes Regional Medical Center ON Thursday, a month after Sigety hit her car while he was making a U-turn on U.S. 1 near East River Drive. The accident occurred at 10:41 p.m. Feb. 22. "It's been a horrifying ordeal for the whole family," said her sister, Terry Williamson. Melbourne Police Chief Donald Carey did not respond to several requests for an interview this week. According to an accident report filed by Sigety, the officer was traveling southbound in the center lane on U.S. 1 in a 2005 Ford Crown Victoria police cruiser when he tried to "merge into inside lane." Instead, the report said, he merged into an oncoming car, a 2003 Dodge Intrepid owned by Winstead but driven by Terri Burkey. Both live at the same address in Palm Bay. Burkey reportedly had minor back injuries, but Winstead broke her hip. Hospital officials have her listed in critical condition. It's the first traffic citation for Sigety in 11 years. From 1992 to 1996, according to court records, he was cited or faced charges that were later dismissed for speeding, careless driving and other moving violations. He was charged in April 1996 for speeding 15- to 19-mph over the speed limit and failure to furnish proof of insurance, according to court records. Both charges were dismissed. In December 1995, he was cited for careless driving and paid a fine. A month earlier he paid a fine for speeding. In November 1992, he paid a fine for illegal racing on the highway. The previous March he paid a fine for driving on the wrong side of a divided highway.
CHARLESTON, WV -- A Charleston police officer who killed a woman when his cruiser collided with the pickup truck she was riding in was sentenced Monday to a year of probation for his role in her death. Charleston Police Patrolman Brandon Tagayun was responding to a domestic dispute in Kanawha City in 2005 when his cruiser crashed into a truck on MacCorkle Avenue. Patsy Sizemore of Charlton Heights was killed in the accident. Tagayun pleaded guilty to speeding and failing to act as an emergency vehicle by activating his lights and siren. "It's been very difficult, your honor, having to start over. I do accept responsibility for the events that happened that night although I do not remember the majority of what happened that evening," Tagayun said in Kanawha Circuit Court. Judge James Stucky sentenced Tagayun to one year of supervised probation and $200 in fines. Tagayun will be allowed to carry out his probation in California. He and his family moved last year. Comment: Can anyone even plausibly pretend that an ordinary citizen causing a fatal wreck would be given such a petite slap on the wrist?
Anthony Abbate should have walked in and out of a Cook County courthouse like any other accused criminal Tuesday morning, Chicago Police Supt. Phil Cline said. Instead, the burly Chicago cop, who is accused of pummeling a petite female bartender during a drunken rage, was shielded from the media by on-duty Grand Central District officers, who apparently were acting on the orders of their captain when they used police vehicles to hide Abbate as he left the Northwest Side courthouse. By evening, an angry Cline announced he was demoting the captain and investigating other allegations against police officers, including that they ticketed the cars of reporters trying to cover Abbate's hearing and threatened them with arrest. Cline's comments came on the day he had planned to announce a new policy that will allow the department to move faster against rogue cops. The policy was in response to Abbate's case and an unrelated incident in which off-duty Chicago cops allegedly beat four patrons at a West Loop bar on Dec. 15. Both incidents were caught on security video, although only Abbate's has been made public. Rather than simply announce the new procedure Tuesday, Cline and his staff were forced to answer questions about why their officers were protecting Abbate. The captain, a 24-year veteran, ordered at least four squad cars to block off a parking lot at the courthouse, which is housed at the district station, and an adjacent private lot to try to "control" the media, officials said. Somebody in authority also apparently allowed Abbate to slip out a rear entrance, avoiding cameras and reporters. Cline said he was stunned by the special treatment, saying of Abbate: "He's tarnished our image worse than anybody else in the history of the department." Abbate has been stripped of his police powers, and the department is moving to fire him because of the Feb. 19 beating, video images of which were replayed around the world. Cline also said six officers allegedly involved in the second beating have been stripped of their police powers When the department was alerted to the beating The officers were reassigned pending the criminal investigation, Cline said. "In hindsight, this incident should have been handled differently," Cline said. "These officers should have been stripped of their police powers sooner. The incident has made me realize we need to tighten up our ps to ensure that officers who participate in this type of behavior do not remain on the street." Under his new policy, police brass will meet with Cook County prosecutors within 48 hours of an officer being accused of serious criminal behavior. If prosecutors believe there is a strong case against the officers, they will be immediately stripped of their police powers, Cline said. A grim-faced Cline, who addressed the beatings with his full command staff standing behind him, said the changes are going to make the force stronger. But he couldn't deny the damage already done to the public trust. "The past two weeks have been disheartening and embarrassing for me, personally and professionally," Cline said. "It is especially demoralizing for the 13,600 who serve this department honorably everyday. . . . They, too, are sickened and embarrassed."
A 16-year-old boy who was acquitted on Friday night of multiple rape was locked up for almost a year awaiting trial. Patrick Waring, then a 15-year-old Catholic college student, was dragged out of bed by police a year ago and refused bail on nothing but the say-so of a lying 17-year-old girl who cried rape. Just before the trial started, the girl admitted lying about her sex life the whole time. She had insisted she was a virgin. DNA tests excluded Patrick from her claims of rape. She finally admitted she had had sex with a man at the back of a cinema the same afternoon, two hours before claiming Patrick raped her at Joondalup's Central Park after following her from the railway station on March 30 last year. She also admitted to having been in a sexual relationship with her boyfriend at the time. Patrick was originally denied bail when a police officer told the Children's Court that Patrick had phoned the girl and threatened her Patrick's father, Terry Waring, said his family had been torn apart for a year. His and his wife's belief in the justice system had been shattered. "Shoddy work, cruelty and seeming vindictiveness cost us our house, financial security and a lifetime of savings for a three-week trial,'' he said. "The emotional cost to the family has been incalculable. Personally, I have not cried as much since my brother was killed in Vietnam.'' The girl's new story included being raped by two different men in two hours. She said the cinema sex with a 20-year-old, who she had met on the internet, was rape, but she didn't want him charged because it might affect her compensation claim. The girl had previously lied to interviewing officers, the Sexual Assault Resource Center doctor who examined her and to prosecutor Amanda Forrester. Director of Public Prosecutions Robert Cock dropped his opposition to bail and Patrick was allowed home on strict conditions on the eve of his trial, but Mr Cock pressed ahead with a three-week trial in the District Court. Yesterday, while Patrick was enjoying his first day of complete freedom for exactly a year, his family was still suffering from the trauma. "The accusations came out of left field,'' Mr Waring said. "We are a very close family and Patrick had never been involved in anything. "The biggest issue we had with him before was that he cycled to school without waiting for his mother to see him across a main road, and he was grounded for two weeks.'' The Warings had to re-mortgage their house in Beldon to pay for the trial and they moved to Canning Vale to be close to the Banksia Hill Juvenile Detention Center so they could visit Patrick daily. Patrick's mother, Marie, resigned her nursing job at Joondalup Health Campus and his father took leave from the commonwealth public service to cope with the trauma. "It's the finish of school for Patrick,'' Mr Waring said. "He's lost virtually all of Year 11 and the start of Year 12 and he's had to grow up very fast. He lost his youth in there. "We didn't tell anyone at school what had happened to him. He just disappeared. And now we couldn't send him back there to face the ramifications of this.'' Patrick's 24-year-old brother, Michael, also lost a year of study for his degree in computer science and information systems because of the ordeal. His 25-year-old sister Danielle has changed her plans to study civil law and is studying criminal law at Notre Dame University. Patrick was charged while his shocked parents were still making their dash back to Perth from a Walpole holiday and before DNA results were obtained. It took PathWest seven months to provide the results. It was only when defense counsel Tom Percy QC and Jonathan Davies consulted DNA expert Brian McDonald to interpret those results that another male's DNA, not Patrick's, was found in the girl's underwear and in her mouth. Only then did she admit her lies. Mr Percy told the court that the case was dangerous and based on the lies of a complainant who was bizarre. In his closing address, he told the jury that the girl's evidence was riddled with inconsistencies, was most implausible and totally dishonest. He said she had lied to people in positions of authority on the night and deliberately lied for a long time, her lies only discovered last month. Ms Forrester told the jury in her opening address for the prosecution that the girl's account would be corroborated in each and every way by the independent evidence gathered by police. But nothing to substantiate the girl's claims was found during a forensic check of the Joondalup park on the night and the SARC doctor found no evidence of sexual assault. SARC's Dr Catherine Nixon, who told the court the girl was clear, composed and cogent on the night, agreed on cross-examination that abrasions on her back could have been caused by carpet burns. PathWest biologist Janine Bennett said in cross-examination that the prosecution's claim of a two billion-to-one likelihood of DNA on Patrick's jeans being a mix of the girl's and Patrick's, was not valid if you allowed for the possibility of a third person being involved. Mr Percy said it was the only calculation PathWest did on the samples and it ignored the possibility of a third contributor found by Dr McDonald. After a three-week trial before Judge Philip Eaton, the jury found Patrick not guilty of four counts of aggravated sexual penetration without consent, one count of deprivation of liberty and one count of aggravated indecent assault. Mr Cock defended continuing with the trial, saying there had been some corroboration of the girl's story by other witnesses and the jury's 10-hour deliberation supported the view that there were serious issues to consider. Patrick admitted in court that he had lied about not ever speaking to the girl. He acknowledged in late November that he had had some innocent, non-sexual social contact with the girl on March 30. He told the court that after seeing the girl at Joondalup train station and talking to her for a while at Central Park, he exchanged phone numbers with her and went home. In court, police conceded they had not followed best practice in the case. Various officers said that the Central Park scene was left unguarded from 1.25am on the night, it was a week before it was searched, and the same officers had visited the homes of the girl and the accused which allowed for contamination of evidence. The male DNA found in the girl's underwear was not identified by PathWest as not belonging to Patrick because it was excluded under PathWest's reporting levels. The trial in the District Court cost taxpayers about $90,000 and has left Mr Waring demanding answers to the failings in the justice system, citing flaws in the police investigation, delays in PathWest testing and its interpretation levels. Cincinnati police officer indicted on rape charges Officer pleads guilty to harassment Four police officers charged in assault Police officer arrested after bar brawl |
               
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