Dressed Like Thugs East Palo Alto Police Beat Down Drug Addict

Bloodied and beaten on a dark East Palo Alto street and clutching a single rock of crack cocaine, the man had no idea who had attacked him. He didn't report it. He didn't think police would care. So he was surprised when, three months later, investigators asked what had happened that August night. Even more shocking was the news investigators delivered last week: The men who allegedly beat him included two off-duty East Palo Alto police officers and a teenage department volunteer. "I thought they were going to kill me,'' said the man, who asked that his name and age not be published for fear of retaliation. Sources said the man's story has been corroborated with other evidence that includes secretly recorded conversations. On the night of the alleged incident, the man said he noticed a dark SUV in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven store on West Bayshore Road. Inside were four men and a woman. "They called out to me and said, `You got any crack?' '' the man said. "I can get you $20 worth,'' the man said he replied. The man said he walked to a friend's home nearby to get the rock cocaine. ``Lemme see, lemme see,'' the people in the SUV asked when he returned. But when he held out the drug, he said, a passenger tried to slap it out of his hand. The man held on and walked away to avoid trouble. He was headed back to his friend's house when the SUV sped up and pulled over beside him. He said four men jumped out, shouting that they were going to kill him. The man ran but fell. The men pounced, he said. They punched and kicked him. He said doctors later told him he had three cracked ribs. Curled into a fetal position, he clung to the cocaine, which the attackers were trying to pry loose. As they beat him, he said, one attacker shouted, ``We're the police.'' But he didn't believe them because, he said, they were dressed like thugs.[more] and [more]

• Alleged attack by police spurs calls for new probe [more]