'Legalized lynching' enrages activists

The River Reporter, October 10, 1996

"Legalized lynching" enrages activists

By TOM RUE

MONTICELLO - A nose-to-nose screaming match erupted between the Monticello police chief and a crowd representing local African-Americans as alleged racism and excessive use of force by a controversial cop were discussed at an October 7 village board meeting.

Jesse York of Monticello, spokesman of the Sullivan County Million Man March Community Action Organization, and chief Michael Brennan faced off on how two black men were injured during two recent, unrelated arrests by Monticello police detective Gerard Dietz.

Jesus Robles, 17, was apprehended on September 28, with another man and a juvenile, at TC's Creamery, E. Broadway. While arresting Robles for Burglary 3rd, Dietz hit him in the face with a heavy police flashlight "because he wasn't cooperating," according Brennan.

Michael Cloud, an adult, was found with 150 bags of heroin, Brennan said. Dietz beat Cloud on the face and body with his fists, Brennan said, to keep him from leaving the parking lot behind the Family Drug Store, where he was arrested.

York singled out local Jews, whom he said hold wealth and power, but don't do enough to stop police abuses "because they're safe."

"Legalized lynching," Roy Parker of Monticello called it.

Close to 20 area residents protested at Dietz's recent promotion to detective, despite misconduct. "I've never been arrested. I've never done a crime in my life, but I've witnessed with my own eyes this officer [Dietz] call a little kid the 'N' word," said Michael Hutson, 21, of Monticello, speaking of an incident which he said took place in 1992.

"He [Dietz] is blocking a lot of drug sales in this community. That doesn't give him the right to beat people up," said mayor James Kenny.

Brennan objected to the issue being brought up in public, disputing assertions that past complaints, made in private meetings with Brennan, about Dietz have been "swept under the rug."

"Maybe you should analyze the chief," Hutson told the board. "Maybe we should," Kenny agreed.

"There was a guy in the bathroom, in the dark, committing a felony," Brennan claimed of Robles. "If he hit him in the mouth, he hit him in the mouth," Brennan shrugged, noting that he was present for for this arrest and it was his flashlight which Dietz brandished.

Brennan called Cloud "a fleeing felon" whom Dietz feared would run, so "he hit him twice." York and others alleged a pattern of abuses by Dietz, including an incident in which a man was brutally beaten by Dietz and others in July 1995 when he came to the police station to pick up a bicycle.

Village attorney Michael Davidoff reported on a September 18 dismissal, by supreme court justice Vincent Bradley, of a lawsuit brought by Dietz and other officers against the village, in which they sought to have taxpayers pay for an attorney of their choosing in defending against allegations of criminal misconduct.

Dietz was recently given a promotion and a raise.

York said the issue will come up at an October 15th village Human Rights Commission meeting.