4th NYPD Patrolman Tells of Seeing Stick

Another policeman came forward Thursday to testify that Officer Justin Volpe brazenly showed off the stick prosecutors say he used to torture a Haitian immigrant in a station house restroom.

Taking the stand at the federal trial of five policemen, Officer Michael Schoer said Volpe taunted him by putting the end of a soiled stick in front of his face.

Volpe told him that human excrement was on the stick, Schoer said.

Volpe, 27, is charged with ramming a broken broomstick into Abner Louima’s rectum and mouth in a fit of rage, inflicting severe internal injuries. Prosecutors say Volpe mistakenly thought that Louima, 32, had punched him in a melee outside a Brooklyn nightclub.

The brutality case, involving a black Haitian immigrant and five white officers, has heightened tensions between the New York Police Department and minorities.

Schoer was the fourth patrolman from the precinct to testify about seeing Volpe with a stick in the station around the time of the alleged assault.

In a more detailed account never before made public, a police sergeant, Kenneth Wernick, testified Wednesday that Volpe had bragged about brutalizing the prisoner and showed off the stick.

“I took a man down tonight,” Wernick quoted Volpe as saying about the attack on Louima.

Wernick’s damaging testimony, like Schoer’s, ended without cross-examination.

Outside court, Volpe’s lawyer, Marvyn Kornberg, refused to say why he didn’t question the witnesses.

Wiese, Volpe and two other officers, Charles Schwarz and Thomas Bruder, are charged with violating Louima’s civil rights by beating him en route to the police station. Schwarz also is accused of holding down Louima in the restroom. A fifth officer is charged with covering up the incident.