It was a warm August night in Flatbush in 2018 when Michael Demas and his steel drum band were performing in a vacant lot at an impromptu gathering of Caribbean music fans.
And then an NYPD sergeant with a history of faulty arrests showed up and ruined the fun.
Accusing the event organizers of selling liquor without a license, Sgt. Alan Chau of the 67th Precinct ordered his cops to arrest six people, including Demas, 60, the band’s leader. Demas, according to a complaint he later filed against the city, was held for nearly 48 hours and eventually agreed to an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal.
“I have no idea how they picked me out,” Demas said. “We were just trying to showcase our culture and [police] came and disrespected us. It was very humiliating,” he added. “It makes you not want to be in America anymore.”
The city has yet to respond to Demas’ lawsuit filed in 2019, but it turns out that Chau heads the list of the NYPD’s most frequently sued officers over the past two years, court records show. Lawsuits were brought against him 14 times in 2018 through 2019, according to records compiled by the Legal Aid Society and obtained by the Daily News. Of the 627 arrests he was involved in, records show 393 were dismissed, or 63%.
Chau is just one of 14 officers who have been sued a total of 87 times in that two-year span, records show. The Legal Aid data doesn’t include cases settled out of court, which would add hundreds more cases to the list, the society said.
A common thread in the lawsuits is they almost all involve low-level busts that are eventually dismissed, Legal Aid lawyers said. In most of the cases the people arrested were subjected to spending 24 to 48 hours in jail and then months of waiting for their cases to be adjudicated. In some cases, people lost their jobs because they repeatedly had to miss work, according to Legal Aid.
Seven of the lawsuits naming Chau, 38, involved him ordering people arrested for allegedly selling alcohol without a license during neighborhood events related to Caribbean holidays and cultural events.
“In most cases, they aren’t actually selling alcohol. [The police] seem to go in and just round people up,” said Demas’ lawyer Abraham Rubert-Schewel. “People are being forced to spend the night in jail for something that turns out to be nothing.”
In another 2018 case, Chau allegedly forced his way into the Flatbush apartment of Frances Babb, 63, early in the morning of Jan. 14, court records show. Chau arrested Babb’s grandson for supposedly “disrespecting” the police. Babb, who runs a day care center out of her home, was also arrested for allegedly operating an unlicensed bar.
During her arrest she was grabbed so violently by one of the other officers that her shoulder separated and she needed surgery, according to the lawsuit.
The charges were all dismissed, court records show. The city has yet to respond.
“I used to have respect for policemen and now I have none,” said Babb. “I consider myself a good person and now I cry every day.”
Her lawyer Masai Lord said that Babb “lost day care business because people were suspicious about why police were involved. These things have long-term consequences that can be devastating even though the police look at it as minor.”
The officer with the second-most lawsuits, Eula Harris of the 44th Precinct in the Bronx, was sued seven times in 2019, including one case in which Harris and other cops stopped Darvin Alvarez, strip searched him and then arrested him for trespassing in an apartment building on Elliot Place in Mt. Eden, Alvarez alleges in a lawsuit.
His lawyer Neil Wollerstein told The News that Alvarez, 29, was in the building playing video games with his buddy before he was arrested, and that his client had to go to court eight times before the case was dismissed.
“They threw me against a wall for no reason,” Alvarez said. “I had to miss work. [Harris] just showed me no respect.”
The city has yet to respond to his lawsuit.
“New Yorkers should not be policed by cops who have been sued for misconduct half a dozen times or more in a single year,” said Corey Stoughton, attorney-in-charge of the Special Litigation Unit of the Criminal Defense Practice at The Legal Aid Society.
“What’s worse is that because of Police Secrecy Law 50a, New Yorkers will never be able to learn how, if at all, the NYPD is responding to this epidemic of police abuse of power,” added Stoughton, referring to the state law which the city has interpreted as barring the release of police personnel records, including discipline cases.
The NYPD said lawsuits against police officers have fallen. “That a lawsuit has been filed does not mean that the claims have legal merit, or that officer misconduct has occurred,” said Sgt. Jessica McRorie, an NYPD spokeswoman.
McRorie said the NYPD has a “robust civil lawsuit monitoring program that involves a serious legal review of an officer’s litigation history. These officers are responsible for keeping people in New York City safe and are assets to the Department and to the City.”
With Stephen Rex Brown
