Police Convicted of Violating Civil Rights

Five Orange, N.J., police officers were found guilty of federal civil rights violations in the beating and pepper-spraying of a man wrongly suspected of fatally shooting another officer. The victim, Earl Faison, 27, of East Orange, was arrested April 11, 1999, and died less than an hour after the attack. The cause of his death was “acute exacerbation of bronchial asthma while in police custody,” according to the state medical examiner. A jury found that Lt. Thomas Smith, 37, and his brother Brian Smith, 30, Andrew Garth, 31, Tyrone Payton, 34, and Paul Carpinteri, 36, were found guilty of conspiring to deprive Faison of his civil rights.