alonzo grant outside court.jpg

San Francisco lawyer Charles Bonner (left) with Syracuse resident Alonzo Grant outside the Syracuse Public Safety Building before a court appearance.

(Douglass Dowty | ddowty@syracuse.com)

Syracuse, NY -- A Syracuse man plans to sue city police, claiming officers brutalized him after he called 911 to break up a dispute outside his residence.

Alonzo Grant returned home from work one Saturday night. He found his adult daughter in a verbal argument with a woman who lived nearby. Things escalated, so he called police at 7:30 p.m. to calm things down, his lawyer said.

But by the time police arrived, his daughter had left. Grant told an officer the dispute was over, then walked back into his house, said Syracuse lawyer Jesse Ryder.

The officer entered the residence, the lawyer said, and told Grant to go outside and talk to another officer.

Alonzo Grant's lawyers provided this photo of injuries Grant suffered in a June 28 encounter with police.

As Grant walked down the front steps, he claims the officer charged him without warning, grabbed him in a bear hug and flung him over a railing before putting him in a chokehold as another officer struck him repeatedly with his fist.

Related link: A witness captured a portion of the arrest in a video posted on YouTube (contains adult language)

Grant, 53, of 105 Hudson St., suffered a concussion, broken nose and cut lip in the June 28 incident at his residence, said Charles Bonner, a San Francisco-area civil rights attorney also working on his behalf. The incident left Grant traumatized.

He was charged with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and harassing and annoying police. He spent a night in the county jail for what Bonner says were "false" charges.

Grant's lawyers believe that police figured he was causing trouble and decided to subdue him. In fact, Grant was not part of the dispute and did not resist in any way, his lawyers said.

Bonner called on Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick to dismiss the charges against Grant. The case was adjourned today in City Court so the DA's office could decide how to proceed. Prosecutors declined comment.

Grant is a 30-year employee of St. Joseph's Hospital Health Center who works seven days a week and has been married for the past 28 years. He has no criminal record, his lawyers said.

Lawyers provided this photo of Alonzo Grant after an altercation with Syracuse police.

Syracuse police declined comment for this story, as is custom for cases with pending court action. They have not released the police statements.

Grant's lawyers also refused to release the police statements, but acknowledged that they tell a much different story. The police version, they said, includes fabrications.

According to Grant's lawyers, those include:

• Police say that Grant took responsibility and said he couldn't stop fighting with police. Grant denies saying that.

• Police say they interviewed Grant's wife. She says they never talked to her.

• Police say Grant refused to be placed in handcuffs. Grant says he was being held in such a position it was impossible to comply.

Grant has filed a complaint with the city's Citizen Review Board and will file a federal civil rights lawsuit claiming police brutality.

No one mentioned race during an afternoon news conference, though the NAACP's local chapter president, Preston Fagan, spoke in favor of Grant's case.

Grant is black. One police officer is described as white and the other black.

The local New York Civil Liberties Union executive director Barrie Gewanter said Grant's case is another reason Syracuse police need a much more detailed use of force policy.

In essence, the current policy simply states that police can use the force necessary to carry out their legal duties. The policy needs to be much more specific to avoid situations that lead to police brutality, Gewanter said.

Grant declined to talk to media outside the courthouse. But the civil rights lawyer characterized what happened as "excessive police brutality."

"This is not who we are in America," Bonner said. "This is Nazi Germany kind of style. We have policies and procedures that we have to follow under the Constitution."