Black Woman Alleges Nassau County Police Attacked her

BY MICHAEL FRAZIER

Sitting with her attorney, grandmother and father, a Roosevelt woman recounted Thursday an early-morning beating she claimed she suffered in April from two Nassau County police officers.

 Jasmine Jackson, 22, and her attorney, Kenneth Mollins of Melville, filed a notice of claim Wednesday with the police department, saying they intend to file a lawsuit against the officers, Eric Sperling and Lt. Brian Fitzgerald.

 Jackson was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest outside her Grenada Avenue home on April 4. She has pleaded not guilty.

 She claims that before the arrest, the officers pulled her out of her car by her hair, threw her to the ground and repeatedly kicked her.

 "I couldn't believe this was happening," said Jackson, who is black. The officers are white.

 Jackson said she sought treatment at Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow for a bloody nose and bruises. An internal police investigation is under way.

 "The Police Department will defend itself in the appropriate venue to these claims," said Det. Lt. Kevin Smith, a police spokesman.

 Officials at the Nassau County Attorney's office said they have yet to receive the notice.

 Jackson said Thursday in a news conference at her attorney's Melville office that she didn't provoke an attack. She said she had just dropped off a friend who lived nearby, parked her car outside her home and took the key out of the ignition.

 Soon after, about 1 a.m., Sperling and Fitzgerald approached, she said.

 Jackson, who said she had been stopped by police at least five times in the past six months but never ticketed, said they asked her for her license and registration.

 She said she had to open the door to hand them the items because the driver's-side window of her Mitsubishi Galant was broken. When she did, she said, the assault took place.

 Doug Mayers, president of the Freeport-Roosevelt chapter of the NAACP, who was at the news conference, said Nassau police have a reputation for engaging in racial profiling and brutality in minority communities. "This is not the first person," he said.

 Smith said Police Commissioner James Lawrence has always made himself accessible to minority community and religious leaders and has put in place initiatives to deal with complaints of racial profiling. Those include an online complaint system and data collection of sex, race and ethnicity at traffic stops that are periodically reviewed. "We are committed to providing the highest quality of service," he said. [MORE]