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Ha'aretz
17 September 2009

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Ethics in Policing

Israel: Police brutality probe

The first encounter that A., a 14-year-old Ethiopian boy, had with the police led to a serious complaint being filed last week with the Justice Ministry department in charge of investigating police misconduct.

A. was returning to his parents' home in Be'er Sheva one evening in June when he met another boy, who has a relative in the city's police force. A. claims the boy started up with him, and during the ensuing fistfight, scratched him on the stomach. But the other boy filed a complaint with the police, who arrested A. and brought him and his father to the police station.

In his complaint to the Justice Ministry - filed by attorney Miri Shaine of the Public Defender's Office and backed by affidavits from four of his relatives - A. said he showed the policeman the injury caused by the other boy's violence, but the investigator ignored it: He neither photographed it nor included it in his report on the incident.

But that was only the beginning of A.'s saga of harassment: He said the investigator screamed at him that he was lying, came so close their bodies were touching and slapped him hard on his head and face. A. told the investigator he wanted to speak to his father, who was waiting for him outside, but the investigator refused and went to close the door.

A. defiantly told the policeman he refused to talk to him after the beatings he had received, opened the door and ran toward his father. The investigator then had A. placed in the police van and brought to another police station, in Be'er Sheva's old city.

In the van, A. began to cry and told his father he had been beaten by the investigator. A.'s father asked the police escorts for the investigator's name, but says they refused to give it to him.

At the old city police station, A.'s father was once again asked to remain outside the room while his son was questioned, this time by another investigator.

A. said this week that the investigator hit him because he stuck to his story. "I was beaten hard on my head. I shouted ... I wanted my father to come into the room. The investigator ... wanted me to sign off on something I didn't do. I told him 'I'm a child, not a criminal.'"

The complaint submitted to the ministry charged that "nothing the minor said was said with his consent or of his own free will. This is a story constructed by the police in order to frame the minor, when it should instead have investigated the incident willingly and without favoritism."

According to attorney David Witztum of the Public Defender's Office's southern district, his office has submitted over 60 complaints about police violence during interrogations to the ministry since the start of the year, yet only one led to an indictment. He criticized what he termed the lack of seriousness with which the ministry examines such complaints.

The ministry responded that every complaint "is handled with professionalism and dedication, and when warranted, indictments are filed."

Routine license check

Even a routine license check can lead to a complaint about police brutality. Earlier this month, Zachar Roshkovitz, 25, of Be'er Sheva was driving in the city with a friend late at night when their car was stopped by traffic policemen. The policemen asked Zachar's friend, who was driving, to breathe into a tube so they could check his alcohol level.

Zachar, who works in a local garage, intervened and asked them to replace the used tube. In response, he said, the policemen said he was "high" [on drugs] and sprayed his face with pepper spray.

"Maybe they thought I was dangerous," he told Haaretz this week. "One of them jumped on me; they handcuffed me and bound my feet. They threw me into the car, and from there [took me] to the station. For hours, I couldn't open my eyes.

"I was kicked all over my body," he continued. "One held my throat and said to me, 'Who do you think you are? Shut your mouth ... You're a zero, you're worthless.' They treat people like animals. They think that if you're Russian, you're a criminal."

Zachar said that throughout his stay in the police station - from 2 A.M. that night until the next afternoon, when they brought him to court to extend his detention - the policemen refused to give him water to drink, nor did they allow him to wash his face, which was stinging from the pepper spray.

After he was finally released from detention four days later, Zachar went to the Soroka Medical Center to document his injury. During his first remand hearing, the bruises were also recorded by the court stenographer: The transcript describes him as suffering, inter alia, from "bruises on his right shoulder"; "black marks on his left hand," which were said to have been made by the soles of a policeman's shoes; "a bump on his head and a broken tooth."

'No public interest'

Yet another complaint filed with the ministry last week was that of M., an 18-year-old resident of a Bedouin community near Dimona. M. was interrogated at the Dimona station in August on suspicion of throwing stones at passing cars. He denied the allegation, saying he was not even at the site during the incident, and volunteered to prove it with a polygraph test. During the interrogation, he said, one interrogator slapped him, while another fetched a baton and beat him on the head.

Asher Sofer, who was charged with making threats and attacking a policeman, filed a complaint to the ministry in which he said that when he was arrested and brought to the Arad police station, one policeman stood him in a dark corner and hit him on the face. In the holding cell, he wrote in his complaint, he was beaten again, vigorously, with kicks and fists, all over his body.

Last week, however, the ministry decided to close its investigation on the grounds that there was "no public interest" in it - without having taken any testimony from Sofer himself. An appeal filed by attorney Shaine of the Public Defender's Office argued that "the decision to close the case without hearing the complainant is unreasonable by any criteria."

Dr. Dalia Helek, chief public defender for the southern district, said the ministry often refrains from asking complainants to testify, even in cases where policemen allegedly used severe violence against civilians.

"I don't understand how they can close a case with such an explanation," she added. "The public has no interest in investigating the complaint of a civilian who claims he was beaten by a policeman?"

When a policeman and a complainant tell different stories, Helek argued, the ministry should not decide. Instead, it should let a court decide.

The Be'er Sheva Police said it was "not allowed to discuss the complaints" because they were under investigation by the ministry.

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Ha'aretz17 September 2009

Israel: Police brutality probe

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Ha'aretz
17 September 2009