Lawrence man files suit claiming police brutality

By Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff

A Lawrence man who allegedly became violent with police after getting a $20 parking ticket was beaten and placed naked in a holding cell with another detainee for several hours by officers who wanted to humiliate him, according to a civil rights lawsuit filed today in federal court in Boston.

The police claimed they stripped Juan Figueroa on Aug. 13, 2006, and put him in the cell with a clothed detainee because he was suicidal and might be a danger to himself, according to Howard Friedman, a Boston lawyer working on the case on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts.

Figueroa was not despondent, said Friedman, who asserted that the officers' real goal was to teach Figueroa a lesson for allegedly resisting arrest.

"We'll punish him right at the scene by making him so humiliated and embarrassed that he'll be more respectful to the police," Friedman said of the officers' alleged reasoning.

Police Chief John J. Romero insisted today that Figueroa was suicidal and denied that the officers wanted to humiliate him. He said he was surprised by the US District Court suit because he met with Friedman and other ACLU lawyers last year and discussed how his department could improve how it handled suicidal detainees, including by giving them disposable hospital gowns to wear instead of stripping them.

"We've stopped that practice, and I agree that that wasn't the best practice in the world," said Romero, who added that the procedure was in place before he took over the department in 1999.

Figueroa, now a 29-year-old laid-off electronics assembler, was arrested around 2 a.m. after he got a ticket for parking the wrong way on Amesbury Street while waiting to pick up a cousin from a nightclub, said Friedman. He allegedly became belligerent with two officers, Alberto Inostroza and Thadeus Czarnecki, whom the suit names as defendants along with the city.

Inostroza slammed Figueroa into the door of the police station and punched him several times in the face, bloodying his nose, the suit said. Czarnecki allegedly choked Figueroa when he did not take his ring off so he could be booked.

The officers then stripped Figueroa and placed him in a cell with a clothed detainee who had been charged with assault with intent to murder, according to the eight-page complaint.

Friedman said he met with the police chief about a year ago and that Romero explained that his officers will strip a detainee and place him a cell with another detainee because police believe it might prevent the newly arrested individual from committing suicide.

"I've never heard of anywhere else in the country where they would strip a prisoner naked and then place them in a cell with a clothed prisoner to prevent them from attempting suicide," Friedman said. "It would make a person feel embarrassed, humiliated, and vulnerable."

Friedman said the two misdemeanor charges against Figueroa for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest were later dismissed.

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