From [HERE] The city and the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office agreed to pay $120,000 to two Rutgers University students who accused officers in the city Police Department of beating and abusing them. They had filed a $2 million federal lawsuit against the department, claiming excessive force.

Kareem Najjar and Jake Kostman say they were asleep when officers from the New Brunswick Police Department stormed into their apartmentnat 4:30 AM in the basement of an off-campus house Dec. 10 and began beating the college students in their beds without any warning and without identifying themselves as police.

"We didn't know they were cops," Najjar, a 19-year-old sophomore, told AOL News today in a phone interview. "One was wearing a ski mask, one was wearing a Rutgers hoodie. Another had on a Jack Daniel's T-shirt and work boots. I honestly thought we were getting robbed." The officers involved were Patrolman Keith Walcott, Sgt. Scott Gould (the community liaison officer), and Detectives Miguel Chang, Andrew Weiss and Robert Bogdanski.

The students say the officers -- who were apparently serving a warrant for someone else in the house -- punched and kicked them multiple times in the face, back and ribs. Kostman, 20, said Najjar began to bleed from his ear after four officers held him to the ground, one pressing his head into the floor with a boot.

"Kareem is just in a ball on all fours, there are four cops on him and he's bleeding from the head. At this point you just gotta hope and pray that they are cops," Kostman told AOL News. Najjar and Kostman say the officers only identified themselves after handcuffing them, but told the roommates they weren't under arrest.