The perp had it coming — even when he was on the floor in handcuffs.
A cop violently beat a prone and cowering Iraq war veteran two years ago because the veteran was still “dangerous,” and had threatened the cop saying, “I’m going to f—ing kill you!” the cop’s lawyer argued this morning, defending the caught-on-video pummeling at the start of a Manhattan police brutality trial.
Had there been audio, the housing project security cameras that captured the chilling Upper West Side beat-down would have recorded Army veteran Walter Harvin screaming menacingly, the lawyer for Officer David London told jurors in opening statements.
London is on trial fighting charges of felony assault and lying in paperwork to frame the veteran for assault. The video of the beating — taken by lobby cameras at the Hostas Houses on W. 93rd St. — will be aired for the first time this afternoon
“I’m going to f—ing kill you!” Harvin kept yelling as London swung his metal baton, defense lawyer Stephen Worth told jurors.
“I’m a veteran. Take that badge off. Take that gun off,” Harvin allegedly threatened, the lawyer told jurors. “I’m going to f—ing kill you.”
“Just because an individual is in handcuffs, it doesn’t mean he is no longer a danger,” the lawyer insisted, claiming Harvin was still kicking while down.
Exactly what Harvin was saying as the baton came down on his head, neck, shoulders and back — and whether it at all justified some 20 blows — will remain a one-sided mystery.
Harvin was newly-returned from the battlefield at the time of the beating, still suffers from posttraumatic stress, and is currently in the wind, prosecutors said.
“Mr. Harvin has been moving around the country, living in homeless shelters, going in and out of VA hospitals,” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Thomas Farber said of the veteran, outside jurors’ hearing.
London, a 15-year NYPD veteran and married father of three kids, is making hay of the absence. Harvin is hiding from the truth of his own culpability, the cop’s lawyer told jurors. The missing veteran is also poised to collect on a major brutality lawsuit against the city, the lawyer told jurors.
“Were he here and were he cross examined, he’d be asked about his actions,” Worth said. “He’d have no good answer to give you, and that’s why he’s not here, I suggest to you.”
Prosecutors maintain that while they’ve looked high and low for Harvin, the video — and the criminal complaint London signed claiming the veteran had swung at and punched him and his partner — say it all.
“I would suggest that’s the worst part of the case,” lead prosecutor David Drucker told jurors in his own opening statements.
“Not only did he assault Mr. Harvin, not only did he cover it up, but he claimed Walter Harvin was assaulting him,” the prosecutor told jurors. “And he knew Walter Harvin was innocent.”