The NYPD Tapes: A Shocking Story of Cops, Cover-ups, and Courage (21 page)

In her IAB statement, Hanlon told investigators that Schoolcraft told her he had high blood pressure and stomach pain. She described him as “irrational, belligerent and shouting.” But according to the tape, the only time Schoolcraft shouted was at the very end when he was being arrested.

Mauriello also characterized Schoolcraft as unbalanced. He described seeing “boxes, animal cages and traps” in the small one-bedroom apartment. He said Schoolcraft was sitting on his bed in shorts, with white socks pulled up to the knees, and looked disheveled.

Mauriello portrayed himself as only concerned about the officer’s well-being. When he said he thought Adrian might have hung himself, Adrian supposedly said, “Obviously not.” Then when Mauriello asked why Adrian
left work, he claimed Adrian angrily approached and said, “What are you worried about?” Mauriello told investigators Schoolcraft was unstable and his eyes were “bugged out.” Mauriello, concerned about a confrontation, left the bedroom and went outside.

Mauriello did not think the response was excessive and would not have done anything differently. He did not think it was at all unusual that Marino was at the scene.

Marino also mentioned boxes, saying it looked like Schoolcraft hadn’t finished unpacking. He told investigators that he found Schoolcraft sarcastic, belligerent, and argumentative. “Why would there be police at my door, Chief,” Schoolcraft said, according to Marino.

Marino then brought the paramedics over to check him out. If he was not sick, he would be suspended. Marino said he was about to leave the apartment, when a paramedic remarked that Schoolcraft’s blood pressure was so high he might have a stroke. Marino claimed he asked for the specifics, but Schoolcraft ordered the paramedics not to disclose them. Marino later claimed that it was the paramedics who advised him that since Schoolcraft refused to go to the hospital, he would have to be declared a psychiatric case and forcibly removed. Marino said he tried to convince Schoolcraft to go to the hospital. When Schoolcraft refused, Marino suspended him and ordered him taken to the hospital involuntarily. Schoolcraft accused him of coercing the paramedics into that decision.

Marino told Schoolcraft to go to the hospital or he would be labeled as an EDP. Schoolcraft was on the phone with his father, and Marino said he could hear Larry screaming.

Marino denied making any physical contact with Schoolcraft, especially putting his boot in his face or ordering him to kneel. He said he didn’t speak with any doctors that day. He denied having any conversations with Nelson or any higher-ranking officials. He did not think it was necessary to involve Nelson.

Nelson, however, recalled that he spoke with Marino the next day. He did not believe the response was excessive, and he denied searching the apartment or taking anything from it. He denied knowing about any prior investigations. He said he recalled previously having a conversation with Mauriello about an under-performing officer, whom he later learned was
Schoolcraft. At the time, He agreed that he should be reviewed by the borough command.

Almost as an afterthought after all that had happened, Schoolcraft was given another low evaluation of 2.5. He was below standards for the second consecutive year. He was given zeros in nine categories. Lieutenant Rafael Mascol wrote, “He fails to maintain the confidentiality of department documents and cases. He breaches integrity and department guidelines and has had disciplinary problems.”

For the year, 81st Precinct crime dropped 10.9 percent—well ahead of prior year declines.

CHAPTER 10

PATIENT NO. 130381874

T
he act of forcibly entering an American citizen’s apartment is not, at least under the U.S. Constitution, something to be undertaken lightly. The Fourth Amendment reads that “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.”

The amendment goes on to say: “No Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

The police had entered Schoolcraft’s home without his consent, assaulted him, and forcibly removed him. They had searched his possessions without a warrant and, he said, seized, among other things, a tape recorder and certain files and folders from his desk. (Those items were never returned.) They had kept him handcuffed in the Jamaica Hospital emergency room even though he was not charged with any crime.

The law doesn’t take lightly committing a person involuntarily to a psych ward. In this instance, the standard appears in the New York State Mental Hygiene Law, section 9, subsections 39 and 41, and it is a high bar.

The more general standard states that a person can be involuntarily committed only if there is “a substantial risk of physical harm to himself as
manifested by threats of or attempts at suicide or serious bodily harm” and/or “a substantial risk of physical harm to other persons as manifested by homicidal or other violent behavior.”

Subsection 41 relates to the powers of police officers: “Any peace officer, when acting pursuant to his or her special duties, or police officer . . . may take into custody any person who appears to be mentally ill and is conducting himself or herself in a manner which is likely to result in serious harm to the person or others.”

In other words, the police and the hospital had to meet a fairly high standard to justify committing Schoolcraft—the “substantial” or “serious” threat of physical harm to himself or others.

Schoolcraft had not, either that night or at any point in the past, made any threats against anyone, nor had he ever expressed a desire to hurt or kill himself. He had never tried to hurt anyone, nor had he ever tried to harm himself, nor had he ever evinced any violent behavior. And he had zero prior psychiatric history before being placed on desk duty.

Moreover, under police procedure, a person “may refuse medical attention.” Even if it is true that the paramedic believed his high blood pressure was a health issue, he still had a right as a citizen to refuse to go to the hospital.

This right is so fundamentally ingrained in law that it goes back almost 100 years to a 1914 case,
Schloendorff v. Society of New York Hospital
, in which the court held that “every human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what should be done with his own body.”

The case included one exception: “cases of emergency, where the patient is unconscious and where it is necessary to operate before consent can be obtained.” (Schoolcraft was neither unconscious nor incapable of making that decision.)

Indeed, medical staffers can be liable for performing care without the consent of a patient.

Justice John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court wrote in a 1990 decision, “There is no doubt . . . that a competent individual’s right to refuse medication is a fundamental liberty interest deserving the highest order of protection.”

The fact that police showed up in force at his house after he had merely left work early was another red flag. Typically, that does not happen
in instances of minor misconduct. In most instances, police commanders would have simply waited until he returned to work and written him up for going home early.

At worst, the misconduct would have resulted in a suspension and the loss of some vacation days. For some reason, Schoolcraft had received the worst kind of special treatment.

Schoolcraft was like Lewis Carroll’s Alice. He had been pulled through the looking glass and landed in a world where the standard rules of physics didn’t apply, and things were going to get substantially worse.

Schoolcraft was in an ambulance on his way to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, a private institution overlooking the Van Wyck Expressway that had benefitted greatly from both government backing and the largesse of private donors. One building in the complex was named for developer Donald Trump.

Lieutenant Broschart, who had been ordered to accompany Schoolcraft to the hospital, later told investigators that Schoolcraft’s attitude changed in the ambulance. He was cooperative with the paramedics, smiling and answering questions.

Schoolcraft remembered it differently. He was still in the chair. He tried to question the paramedics, but they were only interested in checking his conduction. He asked Broschart to remove the handcuffs, but the lieutenant told him to wait until they got to the hospital.

What is striking about this is that the medical “crisis” that Marino had spun in Adrian’s apartment became irrelevant. It wasn’t mentioned again.

Schoolcraft reached the emergency room after 10 p.m. Other than a few hospital documents, there is no independent record of the next six days, except for a ten-page single-spaced account Schoolcraft himself wrote. There is no mention in either the Brooklyn North files or the Internal Affairs files of what took place behind the hospital walls.

Broschart took Schoolcraft to a gurney, handcuffed him to a railing, and placed him in a hallway under relentless fluorescent lights.

Schoolcraft begged Broschart to loosen the cuffs. “I kept asking them, ‘Why am I under arrest, why am I not free to leave?’ ” he said. “   ‘Why am
I handcuffed?’  ’’ No answer. This is who I had to protect me.” Broschart smirked and said, “I bet you wish now you came back to the 8-1 like you were told.” He walked away without loosening the cuffs.

An hour later, according to Schoolcraft’s notes, he asked Broschart to get someone there from Internal Affairs. The lieutenant turned away. Broschart and an officer named Cruz were relieved by Sergeant Shantel James, who started her career as a school safety agent in a Manhattan high school, and a second police officer. Schoolcraft asked James to contact Internal Affairs. She, he recalled, returned to filling out her monthly activity reports. She also ignored his request to loosen the handcuffs.

At some point later, he was interviewed by a female Asian doctor, who asked him, “Do you feel like they are coming to get you?”

“They
did
come to get me, that’s why I’m here,” he replied drily.

She asked him to remember three words in their 10-minute talk: “blue rose, New York, and table.” She asked him other questions, and then said, “This is ridiculous, you shouldn’t be here much longer.”

“I just want to go home,” he told her. “I haven’t hurt or threatened anyone, and I won’t.”

Schoolcraft claimed that during this interview, a police officer was directing a cell phone at them, possibly videotaping the conversation.

“The minute that Adrian shows up at the ER, the doctors aren’t supposed to look at him as a prisoner, because he hasn’t been arrested,” Larry said. “They are supposed to objectively advocate for Adrian. They had a duty to protect him, and instead of advocating and caring for the patient, they assaulted him, too, just like the police did. They just bought right into the whole thing and allowed the NYPD to exploit their medical licenses.”

The handcuffs were locked to a setting that made them painfully tight. “His hands were so swollen he was losing his feelings in his hands,” Larry said, drawing off of his own law enforcement experience. “When you are in the hospital, the doctors give the orders. It’s clear that he’s not a threat, but they won’t even tell the cops to loosen the handcuffs, let alone remove them. Adrian’s not under arrest. He’s surrounded by cops.”

Later, the hospital tried to say that they agreed to leave him cuffed because they viewed Schoolcraft as a “flight risk.” No arrest. No charges. Schoolcraft was not acting out. He was surrounded by police, but he was a flight risk?

“That makes them liable,” Larry said. “For a doctor not to do that, a doctor should go to prison for it. Isn’t a doctor’s responsibility to do no harm? And right here, right in front of them, they are torturing him. This is what makes me sick.”

Sitting there in the ER, miserable, in pain, his wrists killing him, Schoolcraft noted ruefully that a sign over the nurse’s station read, “We are here to help you.” He asked repeatedly to be allowed to call his father, but the requests were denied.

Up in Johnstown, Larry was desperately trying to find his son. But his name wasn’t yet entered in the patient information system. He wasn’t officially at the hospital. Larry wracked his brain. Finally, he had a good idea.

“It’s clear that the hospital was letting the NYPD run the show,” he said. “I tried the security department and got ahold of a sergeant. I asked him to check on him in the ER, and thankfully, he went up and checked. He gets back on the phone and tells me, he’s in the ER, he’s surrounded by police. He tells me he talked to an administrator, who told him to stay out of it.”

Larry called the nurse’s station in an effort to reach Adrian. James ignored Adrian’s request to use the phone, so, frustrated, he rolled his gurney to the phone, picked up the receiver, and dialed Larry. He told his father that no one had seen him and he was still handcuffed, and the cuffs were causing his wrists to swell and cutting off blood flow. Larry was beyond furious. He wanted to come down from Johnstown and set everything straight. Adrian told him to calm down and wait. It would just make everything worse. Larry told him, “I’m going to get you out of there, I’m going to call everyone, I’m going to call the cavalry.”