Exonerated & Newly Free, Alvarez Recalls Encounter With NYPD - Plans Lawsuit

From [HERE] A day after the announcement that a special grand jury had declined to indict him, a man at the center of a chaotic police-shooting case in Harlem recalled being struck by a barrage of gunfire last August as officers broke up a block party.

“It was like being hit with a machine gun,” the man, Angel Alvarez, 24, told reporters on Thursday at a news conference at his lawyers’ office in Manhattan. “I have 27 holes in my body.”

His lawyers added that four bullets are still lodged inside him.

“No expert marksman could have pulled that off,” said Seth Chandler, one of Mr. Alvarez’s lawyers. “It’s a miracle he’s alive.”

Mr. Alvarez, whose lawyers say he plans to sue the police, was released on Wednesday after six months in custody. He was arrested in August after he fought with a man, Luis Soto, during a block party that turned deadly. The police accused Mr. Alvarez of shooting at them as they had advanced on the fight. Four officers fired a total of 46 rounds. Mr. Soto was fatally wounded in the encounter.

Mr. Alvarez looked elated but calm as he recounted the events surrounding the shooting, occasionally holding his 3-year-old son, Angel, on his lap. He said he had approached Mr. Soto intending to get into a fistfight in retaliation for something Mr. Soto had done to one of his friends, when Mr. Soto suddenly drew a gun and fired two bullets into his abdomen and leg.

Mr. Alvarez said he struggled with Mr. Soto, pushing the gun down to prevent Mr. Soto from shooting him in the upper body. One of Mr. Alvarez’s lawyers, Zachary H. Johnson, said that at that point another shot went off.

Then, according to Mr. Alvarez, bullets began flying from behind him. Initially, he said, he had assumed that friends of Mr. Soto were shooting at him, though he later learned that it was the police.

Mr. Alvarez also said a police officer kicked him in the head and told him, “You’re going to die.”

Prosecutors have not said whether they will bring charges against the officers who fired their weapons, though indications are that the same special grand jury that declined to indict Mr. Alvarez will consider the matter. Ballistics tests have indicated that the bullet that killed Mr. Soto was probably fired by the police.

As for the timing of the suit Mr. Alvarez plans to file, Mr. Johnson said: “We’re going to wait until all the evidence is considered. We don’t want to rush it.”

Dayan Perez, Mr. Alvarez’s sister, sat by his side through much of the half-hour news conference, smiling and answering questions from reporters in Spanish. Afterward, TV cameras followed Mr. Alvarez as he kissed his son and carried him down the hall.