Cops Beat E Harlem Man While Arresting Paralyzed Brother: Lawsuit

EAST HARLEM, NY — An East Harlem man is suing the city for $5 million after suffering a beatdown from NYPD officers when he tried to ask why his paralyzed brother was being arrested, according to a federal lawsuit filed this month.

Abass Toure claims that he was brutally attacked by cops when he attempted to intervene in the arrest of his brother on the night of October 4, 2019 outside a store on East 115th Street and Second Avenue, according to his lawsuit.

When Toure arrived to find his wheelchair-bound brother in handcuffs, officer Andrew Atello shoved Toure and other officers on the scene grabbed his arms to restrain him, Toure's lawyers wrote in the civil complaint. While Toure was restrained, a police officer punched him several times in the face, according to the lawsuit. Shortly after the punches, police officers forced Toure to the ground and stomped on his face, according to the lawsuit.

Video obtained by the New York Daily News backs up most of Toure's story, but cuts out before the alleged stomp.

Instead of calling an ambulance, police arrested Toure and brought him to the local police precinct. Ambulances came picked Toure up from the precinct several hours after the man told a supervisor that he was bleeding from the face and suffering headaches. Toure suffered "serious" injuries to his face, bleeding and swelling and a migrane as a result of the attack, according to the lawsuit. The injuries forced Toure to miss work and have left him with scars on the left side of his face and blurry vision in his left eye, the man claims.

"Mr. Toure suffered following the incident and feels fear, embarrassment, humiliation, emotional distress, frustration, anxiety, and loss of liberty," the lawsuit reads.

Toure is accusing the city, Andrew Atello and the other police officers who participated in the beatdown of excessive force, false arrest and the denial of his civil rights. Toure claims that police officers deprived his right to a fair trial by fabricating "a basis to arrest Mr. Toure" on the grounds that the shoved officer Atello and was standing close to police while they were arresting his brother.

Prosecutors ended up dropping the charges brought against Toure.