Residents Demand Answers on Police Decisions

Calls for a civilian complaint review board continue in Long Beach after another street fight in the city.

Mindy Williams echoed her fellow North Park neighbors in asking the City Council to establish such a board after police arrested four suspects when a rowdy group of people had gathered outside of Minnesota’s restaurant-bar on West Beech Street early on Jan. 22.

“Our question is: how can we file complaints against a police officer at the police station where, number one, almost everyone is related, and number two, there’s a blue code of silence,” Williams asked the City Council at Tuesday’s meeting. “This has been going on for years and years.”

Police arrested four men on charges ranging from disorderly conduct to resisting arrest, and a West Beech Street resident told Patch that he witnessed two officers tackle and handcuff a man outside his home. Williams, who did not witness the incident, suggested that police used force against a suspect after he was handcuffed, stating that there is “no excuse for extra brutality.”  

“We want things to be investigated to the fullest extent,” she added.

The Long Beach Police Department released few details about the incident to the press, nor did the LBPD reveal the names of the four men arrested, who were later learned to be Scott Fowler and Long Beach residents Eduardo Natal, Marlon Jones Guma and James Moriarity Jr., who is the son of Long Beach Republican Chairman Jim Moriarity.

Williams asked why the LBPD did not release the mug shots of these men like they did when five other men were arrested after a fight with police officers in the North Park neighborhood last November.

City Council President Thomas Sofield Jr., whose father is the LBPD police commissioner, told Williams that he doesn’t have control over what mug shots go out to the press, and that we would look into the matter.

“If you want, I can make inquires and see if I can figure out why the decision was made to release some mug shots and not to release others,” Sofield said.

Resident Lucy Centeno also talked about reading a local newspaper article that had minimal information from police about the West End incident.

“There’s nothing about them assaulting a police officer, there’s nothing about them attacking the cars,” Centeno said about the four men who were arrested. 

She held up a poster board with several photos of the Natal’s bruised and lacerated face and head and his blood on the icy West End street. She said that Natal, a 26-year-old security guard at Long Beach Medical Center, also suffered a concussion and possibly a fractured arm.  

“Get to the bottom of it,” Centeno told the City Council about the incident. “I want answers …. I think I’m entitled to answers. So is this kid …. If you can’t say to me that the police filed assault charges against these kids, then tell me what happened.”

City Manager Charles Theofan said that he takes seriously any allegations of police misconduct or excessive force, and he encourages people to send him in writing a detailed narrative of exactly what happened in any police-related incident. 

“And I promise you, I will look into and investigate the matter,” Theofan said, noting that he has yet received a letter about the West End incident.

Outside of New York City, Theofan said, he was unaware of any municipality, at least on Long Island, with a civilian complaint review board, and suggested that Long Beach didn’t need one since complaints about police are “far and few between.”

Williams said that there have been people who have had their Civil Rights violated by police, "but they feel as if it’s not going to go anywhere,” she said about their bringing complaints to the LBPD or City Hall.

Theofan said that sometimes complaints don’t rise to the level of police misconduct, including the recent incident, but if an officer behaves disrespectfully toward civilians a second or third time, he will discuss it with the police commissioner and suggest retraining or counseling for the officer.

“It may be a cop that needs a little work,” he said. “ … The police officers here are not to disrespect anyone, and luckily the vast majority of them don’t.”