STATEN ISLAND, NY — A Staten Island man with a range of health problems was hospitalized after an NYPD cop punched and tased him while he was pinned to a bed, his family and lawyers say.
Cops were caught on video manhandling William Colon at his Cottage Lane home on Sept. 28 as they responded to a domestic violence call.
The officers are seen handcuffing Colon — who stands 4-foot-8 and weighs just 85 pounds — as he was held face down on the bed. One cop — whom Colon’s lawyers identified as Officer Vincenzo Trabolse — appears to punch the 24-year-old several times and shock him with a taser as others restrain him.
“I didn’t do nothing, I didn’t do nothing,” Colon shouts in the footage shot by his brother, who tells Colon not to resist. The video, first reported by the New York Daily News on Tuesday was provided to Patch by Colon’s lawyers.
The rough treatment could have proven fatal for Colon, who suffers from a host of medical problems including diabetes, asthma, scoliosis and Mauriac syndrome, a rare diabetes complication that causes dwarfism, according to the Legal Aid Society, which is representing him.
The ordeal has caused Colon some sleepless nights, said his mother, Sonia Adorno. She wants Trabolse taken off the force.
“It’s horrible to listen to,” Adorno said Wednesday. “I’ve been forced to watch it and I would like for Trabolse and his fellow coworkers that day that were present to be held accountable.”
The NYPD “is aware of the incident and there is an open internal affairs investigation,” said police spokeswoman Sgt. Jessica McRorie.
A neighbor of Colon’s called 911 about a domestic disturbance amid an argument between Colon and his ex-girlfriend over some clothing she had given him for his birthday, said Christopher Pisciotta, attorney-in-charge of Legal Aid’s Staten Island criminal defense practice. Colon’s brother, Jazz, showed the woman out of the apartment and the police showed up, Pisciotta said.
Police accused Colon of punching the woman in the face and charged him with four crimes including assault and resisting arrest, according to a criminal complaint.
But Pisciotta said she actually fell on her way out of the apartment. The cops went straight into the apartment without talking to her, he said.
Colon “never laid a hand on her,” Pisciotta said.
In the video, Colon is heard unlocking the door to the apartment after a cop threatens to have it knocked down. He declines to step outside and talk to the officers and Trabolse pushes him down onto the bed. “What are you doing?” Colon is heard saying with Trabolse on top of him.
Trabolse brandishes a taser before zapping a face-down Colon with it, the video shows. None of the eight other cops in the room tried to get Trabolse to pull back, Pisciotta said.
A statement from the Staten Island District Attorney’s Office says Colon went on a profane tirade in which he called an officer a “pig” and a “p—y.” But the video shows Colon said few words as he was being roughed up, Legal Aid says.
Colon spent five days at Richmond University Medical Center, where staff stopped him from spiraling into a diabetic coma after the taser caused his blood sugar to skyrocket, Adorno said. He was also checked for broken bones and internal damage from the ordeal, Pisciotta said.
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Police kept Colon shackled to his hospital bed — even refusing to let him get up to use the bathroom — until a judge released him on Oct. 2, according to Adorno and Legal Aid. Adorno said she wasn’t able to visit her son until the day after the arrest.
“I was nervous, I was scared” after the incident, she said.
Colon’s case is especially egregious because Trabolse allegedly has a history of using excessive force, Pisciotta said. A 2016 federal lawsuit accused the cop of assaulting a Staten Island man with cerebral palsy whom he and another officer were trying to arrest.
“Given Staten Island’s history with the killing of Eric Garner, officers like Trabolse cannot be having contact with the community,” Pisciotta said.
A spokesman for Staten Island DA Michael McMahon said his office will investigate the cops’ conduct, but said body camera footage supports the account of Colon’s language as quoted in court filings.
“This is a case where the police responded to a domestic violence call where a woman suffered clear and obvious injuries to her face,” the spoksman said in a statement. “Justice requires that we take that matter seriously, which we do in all domestic violence cases.”
(Lead image: Video captured an NYPD cop punching and tasing William Colon at his Staten Island home on Sept. 28. Image and video courtesy of the Legal Aid Society)