Veteran's Police Brutality Case Quietly Dropped By DA: Attorney

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — Prosecutors dropped their investigation of a U.S. Marine veteran's bloody encounter with cops — which appears in Attorney General Letitia James' police brutality lawsuit — and declined to charge a detective captured on video waving a baton in his face, according to his lawyer, court records and the Brooklyn District Attorney's office.

Rayne Valentine filed suit Sunday in Brooklyn's federal court against the NYPD and Amjad Kasaji, a Brooklyn Gang Squad detective he believed responsible for a gaping head wound he received while recording a George Floyd solidarity protest on May 30, 2020, court records show.

A Brooklyn District Attorney's spokesperson confirmed the office found "insufficient evidence" to charge Kasaji with a crime. A source also told Patch that investigators uncovered a video proving that Kasaji was not among Valentine's attackers.

The suggestion that evidence exonerating Kasaji might exist was news Monday evening to Valentine's attorney, Gideon Orion Oliver, who said the DA's office never disclosed its findings of an investigation that began in August 2020.

"DA Gonzalez’s Office’s disappointing conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to pursue a case against the NYPD members who (brutalized) Mr. Valentine comes as a shock to him and his legal team," Oliver wrote in an email.

"Whatever steps they may have taken to identify the NYPD members involved are a mystery to us, and certainly did not involve Mr. Valentine."

Valentine's civil suit also includes allegations that the Internal Affairs Bureau — the NYPD department that investigates allegations against police officers — repeatedly attempted to question Valentine without his attorneys present.

The suit contends that one Internal Affairs captain even arrived at Valentine's home about 15 minutes after Oliver contacted his office, rushed by a concierge who tried to stop him and stood outside Valentine's door demanding an interview.

"In sum, the NYPD’s knowledge of Mr. Valentine’s assault has resulted primarily in harassment from the police," the lawsuit states. "Not any measure of accountability, discipline, or justice."

NYPD spokesperson Sergeant Edward Riley declined to comment on pending litigation.

Valentine first found himself facing Kasaji near the corner of Church and Nostrand avenues in the early hours of May 31, six days after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin fatally pressed his knee against Floyd's neck, according to his video and civil complaint.

The former vet had spent the day at Kings County Hospital, where it was his job to deliver bodies of coronavirus victims to refrigerated trucks waiting outside, according to the suit and a GoFundMe campaign created on his behalf.

"On his first day on the job, he and his coworkers loaded 45 bodies within just the first few hours, not even by day’s end," wrote GoFundMe user Lisa Vita. "The job he took is one that most couldn’t or wouldn’t do."

Valentine decided to head to a nearby 2/3 train station but stopped when he saw a group of police officers tackling a protester to the ground, according to the suit.

Shortly after he began to film, Valentine's video shows an officer — whose badge reads "Kasaji" — swinging a baton and shouting, "Move back."

The name Kasaji also appears in one substantiated complaint filed with the Civilian Complaint Review Board, five unsubstantiated complaints and a police brutality lawsuit the city settled for $15,000, according ProPublica and CAPstat databases of police records.

"I am moving back, I'm moving back," Valentine replies before the phone's image distorts and the recorder captures the sounds of screams in the distance.

The officer shoved him to the concrete and several officers began to beat him, Valentine later told the Attorney General's office.

Valentine testified that when he tried to explain to the officers he was just heading home, one officer replied, "You picked the wrong time to do that."

"When the beating finally stopped, they left me on the ground with blood streaming down my face," Valentine said at January press conference. "I was terrified."

Images posted to his GoFundMe campaign show Valentine in the moments after his encounter with police with his scalp, nose and NYC Health + Hospital identification badge stained with blood.

Valentine returned to the hospital where it took seven staples to close the gash in his head, the veteran told the Attorney General.

At the Flatbush hospital, police officers interrogated Valentine, copied his video onto their phones and hinted he could face arrest for rioting, according to the complaint.

Valentine's lawyers informed the bureau their client was only to be contacted through their office, but that didn't stop Internal Affairs officers from calling him on the phone and trying twice to gain entry to his building, the complaint contends.

When Oliver reported the alleged breaches of Valentine's Sixth Amendment right to counsel, an Internal Affairs representative denied the phone call had ever taken place, the attorney said.

"That's not the way to conduct a serious investigation," Oliver said.

In August 2020, Valentine spoke with Brooklyn prosecutors, who he hoped would launch an investigation into his attack and potentially file criminal charges, his attorney told Patch.

But prosecutors seldom communicated with Valentine and the last time his attorneys — Oliver, Elena Cohen and Remy Green — received an update was in October 2020, Oliver said.

That update did not include information about a second video, Oliver said.

"There's a complete lack of accountability at this point, or even transparency," Oliver said. "It's pretty extraordinary that a prosecutor would interview a victim or survivor and then take such a long time without talking to the person."