A gay Staten Island caterer says cops who were captured on video taking him down in his front yard, beat him while shouting homophobic slurs, the Daily News has learned.
Louis Falcone, 31, wasn’t charged as a result of the June 19 takedown, and now plans to sue in federal court for civil rights violations, lawyer Eric Subin said.
“How can you do that – four people on one skinny, scrawny little guy?” Subin asked. “They’re criminals; they belong behind bars.”
Falcone, all of 150 pounds, told the Daily News that the officers pulled him out of the Midland Beach home he shares with his mom while investigating a noise complaint at 5:30 a.m.
He says they roughed him up while calling him a “f**”and a “f****t.”
Anti-homosexual slurs aren’t audible on the video, which was taken from across the street and was viewed by the Daily News. “While I was on the ground, I had mud and blood in my mouth,” he said. “One (of the cops) said, ‘Don’t let it get on you, he probably has AIDS, the f****t.'”
Falcone’s mom called 911 to report her two sons were fight, a police spokesman said.
When police arrived, “Falcone became belligerent and uncooperative. He appeared to have been injured in the fight with his brother. As the officers attempted to subdue him, he resisted and spit blood in the face of one of them,” a police spokesman said.
“The officers were able to restrain him and he was transported by EMS to a local hospital for evaluation.”
Falcone says around 4:30 a.m. when his brother arrived at the home “obnoxiously drunk” after a night of partying.
“We had words,” he said. “I was yelling at him; he was yelling at me.”
After the argument, and an hour after his brother left, says Falcone, he was trying to fall back to sleep when four cops showed up at the front door.
The cops told him they were there for a noise complaint, and he described what happened with his brother.
“As I’m talking to them through the screen door, they’re saying to come outside,” Falcone recalled. “I said, ‘For what?”
Then, his dog Looch, part pitbull, began barking.
“The cops said, ‘Get your dog out of here or I’ll f—— kill it!'” Falcone says. “I was like, ‘What do you mean you’re going to kill my dog?'”
He said he was shooing Looch away when an officer yanked Falcone outside.
“They threw me against the concrete in front of my house,” he said. “My first reaction was to try to get up a little bit.”
On the video, one of the officers is seen entering the home. Then, the others try to restrain Falcone on the ground.
Falcone, whose 66-year-old mom can be seen yelling from the doorway, said he had recently undergone foot surgery and was wearing a boot.
“Then they’re hitting me for no reason,” he said. “One puts his knee on my neck. They were all piling on top of me.”
He said he was pleading with cops to be careful with his foot.
“I said, ‘Please, I just had surgery on my foot,'” Falcone said. “One of the cops stepped on my foot. Another cop comes and steps on my head.”
Amid the fracas, it is not clear in the video if an officer stepped on Falcone’s foot.
Falcone says he was left with a broken nose, two black eyes, cuts to his face and body, and needed more foot surgery.
The foot injuries have made it difficult to work for the catering company that employs him, he says.
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