CLERICAL INTERFERENCE IN BEHALF OF A BRUTAL OFFICER.
[New York Sun, September 16.]
On Monday afternoon, in the rooms used for the trial of officers at Police Headquarters, there was told a tale which must have made the walls themselves blush for shame. Policeman Owen O’Sullivan and Doorman Henry A. Spaulding were tried before Commissioner Parker on charges made by Captain Moynihan of the East One Hundred and Fourth Street Station, of maltreating a prisoner, James Dalton, by name. We quote from the Captain’s testimony a part of the revolting story:—
I ran out and found Doorman Spaulding standing in the doorway of a cell. Inside were Sullivan and the prisoner. Sullivan was holding the prisoner with his left hand, and holding a club above his head with his right hand. The prisoner was grasping the club with both hands and yelling:
“Murder! Have mercy on me! For God’s sake don’t kill me.”302I said: “Let go of the officer’s club.” The prisoner said: “No; if I do he will kill me. Help! Murder!”
Blood was running down over the prisoner’s face. The walls of the cell were spattered with blood, and there was blood on the floor.
“What did you hit him for?” I asked Sullivan.
“To make him confess the name of his accomplice,” said Sullivan.
We do not believe that this savage policeman and his assistant will be allowed again to wear the uniform of this city. But is their punishment to be merely dismissal? Can an outrage so shocking pass unnoticed by the public prosecutor?
Another portion of Captain Moynihan’s testimony seems to us to warrant further and different investigation. He said to Sullivan:—
“Get away from me. I want no communication with you. You are a disgrace to the force, and the commissioners want no such men under them.” Then Sullivan went up to One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street and got a priest to come and talk with me.
Perhaps the people generally might like to know the name of this priest, and what he found in the case that made clerical interference necessary.