Albany

A Virginia man who played football for Hudson Valley Community College claims Troy police officers roughed him up and unnecessarily used a stun gun to subdue him a year ago when he was arrested for jaywalking on a downtown street.

Archie J. Davis, 21, of Woodbridge, Va., outlined his allegations in a federal civil rights lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court against the city of Troy and several police officers.

The incident led to the discipline of a Troy police officer, Dominick Comitale, who violated the department's code of conduct when he lied to internal affairs investigators to conceal that he lost Davis' cellphone during the arrest, according to an internal affairs report. However, the internal investigation also concluded that Comitale's "use of physical force ... was appropriate," according to a letter that city police Chief John F. Tedesco wrote to Davis in January.

In April, the Times Union reported the FBI was investigating numerous incidents involving allegations of excessive force by several Troy police officers, including Comitale. One incident that is a focus of the probe was an alleged beating of a person inside a police lockup that was videotaped. Another incident involved Comitale's use of pepper spray and a Taser to arrest a man at St. Mary's Hospital. The latter case is the subject of a second federal lawsuit against the city and police force.

Davis, who left HVCC and returned to Virginia last year, was arrested on minor charges when he and three of his college roommates were confronted by Officer Isaac Bertos as they walked across Adams Street toward their apartment. Davis — in testimony that was required at a hearing after he filed his claim against the city — said there was no crosswalk on the street, so they crossed where they always did. The officer, who was parked nearby, wheeled his patrol car around, yelled at them to get off the street and then asked all of them to produce identification, David said.

Davis used his cellphone to call his father and placed the device on speaker mode because he said he wanted the officer to talk to his father, he said.

But as other officers arrived, including Comitale, Davis said the encounter turned violent.

"This is my dad on the speakerphone," David said he told the officers. "And that is when the cop grabbed my hand and threw me up against the car. ... I hit my head on the window. ... And then I had my hands behind my back and one of the cops punched me in the eye."

David testified that the police officers kept yelling that he was "resisting," but he claims he kept his hands up and didn't move as they pummeled him.

"That's when all the cops, they was like punching me. Hitting me," Davis testified. "They threw me down, hitting me in my ribs with like a little brown — I think it was like a brown stick. Another cop ... he hit his knee on my head."

Davis said at that point another officer shot him twice with a Taser. He added that the officers allegedly told him they struck him because they believed he might use his cellphone as a weapon. The charges against him — illegal crossing, a violation of a city ordinance, and resisting arrest, a misdemeanor, were later dismissed.

Terence L. Kindlon, Davis' attorney, called the charges "absurd."

"Archie was a handsome, well-dressed, polite, cooperative African-American HVCC football player who was merely crossing the street after practice to get to his apartment," Kindlon said. "He was inexplicably accosted by a Troy police officer, punched, slammed up against a parked pickup truck, Tasered twice, handcuffed, falsely charged with resisting arrest and taken into custody."

Tedesco, in the letter to Davis last January, told the Virginia resident that the internal investigation had "exonerated" Comitale from allegations he used excessive force, but that the officer violated "several provisions of the Troy Police Code of Conduct."

Tedesco did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

blyons@timesunion.com • 518-454-5547 • @blyonswriter