By Erin Petenko | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Encounters between police and suspects turned violent more than 40,000 times over five years, according to an NJ Advance Media investigation.

That’s more than 20 times a day on average.

But for the tens of thousands of people who had force used against them, each incident was one of the most memorable moments of their lives, leaving behind criminal charges, physical injuries and lingering psychological problems.

There is no central system for tracking police force, whether justified or not, but NJ Advance Media’s investigation turned up at least 109 excessive force lawsuits against officers and police departments since 2012.

These seven cases shed light on a scattershot oversight system that can lead to big taxpayer-funded payouts. While using force is a normal part of policing, departments in many cities, including here in New Jersey, track it as a primary indicator of whether an officer requires training, intervention or discipline.

Of the 22 officers named in documents for the cases below, almost all of them would have been flagged for review at least once in five years under systems in three major cities. Fourteen officers would have been flagged for review based only on use of force under Los Angeles’ system. Nineteen officers would have been flagged under New York City’s system. And 20 officers would have been flagged under Chicago’s system.

[Read more about how N.J.'s system for tracking police force is broken.]

It’s unclear whether any of the officers involved in the cases below faced scrutiny by their departments because internal police records are kept secret in New Jersey.

Don't Edit

Bridgeton: Repeat encounters

Officer Shane Sawyers pulled over Marella Lawson on a residential road in Bridgeton for suspicion of a suspended license on March 31, 2015.

It was a routine stop, but the two had crossed paths before.

Lawson, a 43-year-old black woman, sued Sawyers, alleging excessive force, assault and battery in a 2013 incident.

According to court records from that case, Sawyers and fellow Bridgeton officer Robert Robbins came to her house to charge her with contempt for violating a no-contact order. Lawson, a diabetic, asked to finish eating before she left, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court.

Sawyers instructed Robbins to take her plate away. According to the lawsuit, when she reached for a glass of orange juice, Sawyers grabbed her by the arm and bent it behind her back. The two officers drove her to the floor, the suit claimed.

The officers said Lawson was resisting by refusing to put her hands behind her back, according to the lawsuit. Lawson said she could not comply because she had a frozen shoulder from an old injury and asked that she be cuffed in the front. Instead, according to the lawsuit, Sawyers punched her in the face, kicked her, pulled her hair, banged her head against the floor and ordered Robbins to pepper spray her.

Lawson said she suffered neck and shoulder injuries and psychological distress.

Two years later, with the suit pending, Sawyers, Robbins and a third officer, Billy Ringstaff, stopped her on the residential road. She refused to open her car door and called 911, so officers attempted to break her passenger-side window. The officers pulled her from the vehicle and wrestled her to the ground as she screamed about her injured arm, according to a video and court records.

Lawson amended the suit to include the new incident, and in 2016, she settled with the city for $690,000. The claims against Sawyers and Robbins were voluntarily dismissed, and the city did not admit wrongdoing. Lawson’s attorney, Gregg Zeff, declined to discuss the case because of a confidentiality agreement.

Bridgeton police Chief Michael Gaimari said the department never received an excessive force complaint from Lawson until she filed her suit. Police officials reviewed the case and concluded there was nothing illegal about the arrests, but the department did make changes to its policies for when officers use force, Gaimari said.

Read Sawyers' entire force report here. You can also read the full reports for Robbins and Ringstaff, as well as the full Bridgeton police department.

Don't Edit

Andrew Zuckerman | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Seaside Heights: Trouble on the boardwalk

George Hatze was enjoying the Seaside Heights boardwalk with his 8-year-old daughter on the July Fourth weekend in 2012 when a police officer on a bike collided with them.

“Hey, watch it,” the man told the officer, prompting an argument, according to Hatze’s attorney, Thomas Mallon.

“Next thing you know, he’s getting thrown onto the boardwalk,” Mallon said.

Officer Robert MacFarlane pepper-sprayed Hatze, took him to the ground and kneed and hit him in the back, according to an excessive force lawsuit filed in federal court in 2012. Hatze was diagnosed with a fracture to his back, Mallon said.

In a use-of-force form and arrest report completed after the incident and obtained by NJ Advance Media, MacFarlane said he parked his bike and Hatze went over and slammed it into a wall. Hatze "pushed (me) in the chest" and threw a punch, the officer wrote.

The borough did not admit wrongdoing and settled with Hatze in 2014 for $500,000. That same summer, two other incidents in the borough also sparked excessive force lawsuits, and they were later settled for $20,000 and $25,000.

Between 2010 and 2014, the borough made payments to settle at least 13 excessive force lawsuits, according to court records compiled by NJ Civil Settlements, a website run by open records advocate John Paff. Police officials did not respond to a message seeking comment on the suits.

Read MacFarlane's full force report here. Or check out the full report for Seaside Heights.

Don't Edit

Perth Amboy: An emotionally disturbed man

Dixon Rodriguez wasn’t a stranger to the Perth Amboy police.

His mother, Asela, would call 911 to have him taken to the hospital when he was in distress because she couldn’t drive, said Gary Chester, an attorney who represented the family.

“As with many emotionally distressed persons, getting the right medication was not an exact science,” Chester said. “Sometimes he would not get the right dose and would need to see a physician.”

One of those days fell on Dec. 4, 2013.

When officers Gina Fontan and Rafael Puntiel arrived at the home, Rodriguez was behaving "unpredictably," Chester said. Chester alleged officers behaved aggressively, aggravating Rodriguez's condition.

“There are special procedures in the law enforcement community for dealing with this,” Chester said. “You’re not supposed to confront (emotionally disturbed people) as you would others.”

Grainy surveillance footage from across the street shows Rodriguez punching Fontan, knocking her to the ground. Puntiel shot the man in the head, and he was pronounced dead shortly afterward. The Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office, which later found the officers justified in their use of force, said Rodriguez was holding a knife. The lawsuit alleges police planted the knife after the shooting.

Asela Rodriguez ran out of her apartment when she heard the gunshot and found her son dead on the pavement, according to court records. She filed suit in 2014 in Superior Court, alleging emotional distress. Her son Juan sued on behalf of his brother’s estate. The two settled their cases with Perth Amboy, which did not admit wrongdoing, in July 2017 for $350,000.

See how often Puntiel used force here. See how often Fontan used force here. Or see the full report on Perth Amboy here.

Don't Edit

Perth Amboy: The $850,000 noise complaint

Edwin Rodriguez was on the street in September 2013 with his 10-year-old cousin playing with a remote-controlled car when a neighbor called the cops to complain about the noise.

According to court records, the pair had gone inside by the time Perth Amboy officer Davis Salazar had arrived, but Salazar knocked on the door and asked Rodriguez for his ID. Salazar said in his arrest report that he followed Rodriguez to his home.

Rodriguez repeatedly asked why the officer wanted to see his ID, according to his attorney, Brian Schiller.

Rodriguez went inside his house, but Salazar wedged his foot inside the door while he continued to request identification. The officer wrote in an arrest report that Rodriguez began yelling and several of the building’s other tenants came out into the hallway. The officer also claimed in the report that he saw Rodriguez holding a knife.

“I then sensing fear for my own safety due to the close proximity of the suspect with the knife in his hand and degree in which I was outnumbered, I grabbed the suspect by the right wrist and ferociously took him down the ground,” the officer wrote.

Salazar also pepper-sprayed Rodriguez, according to a use-of-force report from the incident.

Rodriguez suffered a dislocated shoulder, but authorities took him to the police station before emergency medical staff took him to a hospital, his attorney said. He was charged with disorderly conduct, obstruction, resisting arrest and unlawful possession of a weapon.

Rodriguez was convicted on those charges and went to jail on a parole violation, but the charges were thrown out during a retrial.

Rodriguez sued in 2015 in the Superior Court of Middlesex County, alleging malicious prosecution and excessive force. He settled with Perth Amboy in 2016 for $850,000. The department did not admit wrongdoing.

In response to a request for comment on both lawsuits, Noelia Colon, a spokeswoman for Perth Amboy, sent the following statement from Chief Roman McKeon: "As a recently accredited organization, we follow the Attorney General’s standards and procedures on use of force, including tactical training several times a year and internal reviews."

See how many times Salazar used force here. Or see the report for the full Perth Amboy police department.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Bloomfield: The coverup is worse than the crime

The officers said he reached for a gun. The video showed his hands were up.

Bloomfield officers Orlando Trinidad, Albert Sutterlin and Sean Courter charged Marcus Jeter with resisting arrest, eluding and obstruction following a 2012 traffic stop that left him beaten and bloodied. Dashboard video showed the officers kicked and punched Jeter as he pleaded with them, saying he had done nothing wrong.

Three years later, Trinidad and Courter were convicted by an Essex County jury of official misconduct and related charges for attacking Jeter and then lying to cover it up. They were both sentenced to five-year prison terms. Sutterlin pleaded guilty to falsifying records and was sentenced to probation. Jeter sued in 2014 in Superior Court of Essex County and settled this year for $1.6 million.

It was not an isolated case.

Trinidad was accused of assaulting Rodolfo Crespo inside police headquarters in 2013 after arresting him on drug charges, according to a lawsuit filed in 2014 in Superior Count of Essex County.

Crespo asked Trinidad for help making a phone call after having trouble with the line. In response, Trinidad grabbed Crespo and threw him to the floor, the lawsuit said.

Trinidad kneed Crespo in the back, pressed his hand against Crespo’s face and pinned him to the floor as he and another officer, Jennifer Horn, repeatedly punched him in the head and body, according to the lawsuit. Crespo suffered head trauma, bruising and injuries to his right ear.

Crespo settled a lawsuit against Bloomfield in 2015 for $243,000. Neither the department nor any officers admitted wrongdoing.

Vincent Scoca, an attorney for Sutterlin, said his client was never charged with using excessive force in the Jeter case. He was ultimately convicted of falsifying police records.

Frank Arelo, Trinidad's attorney, said he was disappointed by the jury verdict in the Jeter case. He said the jury focused too much on the police report and not on Jeter’s behavior.

Bloomfield Public Safety Director Samuel DeMaio, who took over the department in the aftermath of the scandal, said he is “confident it would not happen again with the systems we have in place.”

Bloomfield now automatically flags officers for review if they meet certain criteria on use of force, personnel complaints or motor vehicle pursuits, DeMaio said. The department also has a use-of-force review board that looks at video footage, reports and statements about an incident to decide whether force was warranted. He said if that system had been in place back then, the officers would have been flagged long before going to jail.

Read Trinidad's entire force report here. Read Courter's report here. Both left the force in 2013.

NJ Advance Media found no use-of-force reports filed by Sutterlin.

See the report for the full Bloomfield police department.

Don't Edit

Woodbury and West Deptford: Rough cuffing

When a cop pulled up while Joseph Rickert and his girlfriend were parked on the side of the road in April 2012, Rickert said, he told the officer right away: I have a disability.

"I have cerebral palsy, so don't start slinging me the f—k around," he told officer Michael Franks of West Deptford, according to the officer's arrest report.

“He promised me my safety,” Rickert told NJ Advance Media.

As Rickert was close to the border of the town, both Woodbury Heights officer Nicholas DiBlasio and West Deptford officer Francis Mullin also responded. Franks went back to the car and ran Rickert and his girlfriend through a law enforcement database, said Rickert's attorney, Richard Pescatore. Rickert had an open warrant for an unpaid ticket. The officers decided to arrest him and told him to step out of the car.

Rickert said he asked the police not to cuff his hands behind his back because he had coordination problems.

They pulled his hands behind his back and cuffed him anyway, then half-led, half-dragged him to the police car, Rickert said.

“I couldn’t walk, but they thought I was just messing around,” he said.

In Franks’ arrest report, he said Rickert began cursing when DiBlasio asked him to place his hands behind his back. The officers pushed Rickert against the truck to handcuff him and then “carried” him to the police car when he “refused to stand up,” according to the report.

Once he got to the police car, Rickert said, he was too disoriented to get in and sit down. So the officers forced him into the squad car, causing neck injuries that required surgery, he said.

Rickert said he asked repeatedly for West Deptford to conduct an investigation, but he said they never did. He filed a lawsuit against both towns in Superior Count of Gloucester County in 2014, and settled with West Deptford and Woodbury Heights for $575,000 in 2016.

Neither township admitted wrongdoing. Police officials in both towns did not respond to a message seeking comment.

West Deptford and Woodbury Heights did not provide any use-of-force report for the incident in response to a records request when compiling our database or to a specific request for the incident form. Depending on the exact nature of force, the officer’s forced handcuffing might qualify as a compliance hold.

See Franks' force report here. See DiBlasio's force report here. See Mullin's force report here. Or see the reports for the full West Deptford and Woodbury Heights police departments.

Don't Edit

Atlantic City: The $3 million payout

The largest excessive force settlement since 2012 began with a drunken man shouting at cops on a summer night in 2013 in Atlantic City.

David Castellani, 20, had run into the cops earlier that night after they noticed him weaving between casinos. They could have stopped him for underage drinking, but they let him continue instead, said Jennifer Bonjean, Castellani’s attorney.

“They wanted to let him go on his way until he crossed a line, and then they wanted to beat his a--,” Bonjean said.

Surveillance video, which contains no sound, shows Castellani talking to officers before crossing the street and seemingly shouting at them. He paces back and forth down the street, walking away and then returning to shout more.

Four officers run up to Castellani to arrest him. The officers said he tried to punch them. Castellani denied the allegation.

“There was only an effort to engage in a fight,” his attorney said of the officers’ response. “There was no pause. Rushing across the street and just throwing him to the ground.”

The video shows a fifth officer arrived as the officers brought Castellani to the ground and repeatedly kneed him in the back and struck him with batons. Another officer pulled up in a police car and rushed to the scene with a dog, which attacked Castellani’s neck and the back of his head, the video shows.

“This officer shows up in the scene and immediately unleashes what I consider to be deadly force to a suspect who was largely under control at that point,” Bonjean said.

Castellani was charged with aggravated assault on a police officer, a felony offense. He pleaded guilty and was selected for pretrial intervention, a program that allows offenders to clear their records without jail time, but the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office refused to allow it.

The office appealed his selection up to the New Jersey Supreme Court, which ruled in Castellani’s favor.

Castellani sued in 2013 in federal court, alleging excessive force. Four years later, Atlantic City settled and agreed to pay $3 million. Neither the city nor any of the officers admitted wrongdoing. City officials declined to comment on the case.

“There was an incident that could have been handled in an appropriate way if there were officers that were well-trained and did their job,” Bonjean said.

An Atlantic County jury declined to indict any of the officers involved, but federal prosecutors charged K-9 officer Sterling Wheaten in October with violating Castellani's civil rights and falsifying police records.

See Wheaten's force report here. Or see the report on the full Atlantic City police department.

Don't Edit

Read more from The Force Report:

The Force Report is a continuing investigation of police use of force in New Jersey. Read more from the series or search your local police department and officers in the full the database.