Family contends police beat man who was turning in gun
Police say they were trying to subdue a man armed with a loaded, black Smith & Wesson .38-caliber revolver.
His family and friends say 20-year-old Nathaniel Rivers had found the gun and was bringing it to the police station when officers stopped him, beat him, and then arrested him. Rivers now faces a charge of unlawful gun possession.
Rivers, who has a large bruise near his right temple, was arraigned yesterday in Roxbury District Court as at least 16 of his friends looked on in the courtroom. He had been treated by an emergency medical technician for a cut above his left eye, according to a police report.
He was held on $10,000 cash bail. In Massachusetts, a conviction of unlawful possession of a gun outside work or home carries a mandatory 18-month prison sentence.
His mother, who identified herself as Freda Rivers, said her son was trying to do the right thing.
"Mayor Thomas Menino is telling these kids to pick up guns and turn them in," she said just before the arraignment. "Is this what's going to happen to them?"
She said her son and his friends had gone to a cookout Sunday at a park near Howard Avenue, where Rivers found the gun. Rivers's cousin Stephen Lewis, who was with Rivers at the park, said his cousin thought he could get money for the gun if he gave it to police. As he rode away on his bike, Lewis said, a police wagon drove up, struck the bike, and officers rushed out to beat Rivers.
"They just kept beating him and beating him and beating him," Lewis said. "I only stepped in when he said, 'I can't breathe!' "
Lewis said police then began beating him as well. He was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. He was released.
In a police report, officers described a different chain of events:
Just after midnight on Sunday, they wrote, officers went to the scene following a tip that someone fitting Rivers's description had a gun. When they arrived, they saw Rivers riding away on the bicycle and ordered him to stop. He kept riding, then hit the front of an unmarked cruiser. The report did not say whether the cruiser was pursuing him.
Police tried to restrain him, but "the suspect began to violently resist, struggling with the officers."
Lewis yelled and cursed at the officers, who ordered him to move away, police reported. Instead, Lewis moved toward Rivers and "grew more and more out of control." When officers found the gun on Rivers, they wrote, he told them, "I need it for protection."
Elaine Driscoll, police spokeswoman, would say only that "Officers did a tremendous job arresting this dangerous suspect."
Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com. 