SCHENECTADY, N.Y. — Donald Randolph said his long night began with the officer pointing a gun at him and then ripping the do-rag and baseball cap from his head and elbowing him in the face as he was patting him down.
"What do you think you're black?" he alleges Schenectady Patrolman Andrew Karaskiewicz said, taunting him before launching him into the back seat of a police cruiser during a drunk driving call. Randolph is white.
What Randolph says happened over the next few hours has resulted in the suspensions of Karaskiewicz and four other city officers, a pending state attorney general criminal probe and a lawsuit filed on Randolph's behalf.
The Pattersonville man revealed specific details of the alleged police beating during a conversation Friday with a Times Union reporter just before testifying to a Schenectady County grand jury panel looking into the alleged beating of Randolph.
Randolph, 37, was animated at times as he recounted the confrontation with Karaskiewicz and the officers who were called as back up during the early morning hours of Dec. 7.
Karaskiewicz, Gregory Hafensteiner, Kevin Derkowski, Eric Reyell and Daryl Mallard, have been suspended with pay, accused of using excessive force against Randolph. None of the officers have been charged.
The Schenectady Police Benevolent Association's president, Lt. Robert Hamilton, declined to address Randolph's version of what happened.
"We're all looking forward to the day they can tell their side of the story, but unfortunately they have not had that opportunity up this point," Hamilton said.
Randolph, whose criminal record dates to 1993, has served time in state prison for burglary and robbery convictions before being paroled about 10 years ago, according to New York Department of Correctional Services records.
Randolph said that on Monday he viewed for the first time footage taken by dashboard mounted cameras inside one or more of the police vehicles that captured the audio and video of the alleged beating.
His attorney, George E. LaMarche III with the E. Stewart Jones firm in Troy, and an official with the state attorney gener al's office were also there.
"I was just shaking my head because everything the officer told me to do, I did and he still treated me like (expletive)," he said of his dealings that night with the police in the Union Street McDonald's parking lot, and at Union and McClellan streets and at police headquarters.
According to a police incident report, an unruly Randolph was intoxicated and yelling outside the restaurant drive-through window when police arrived just before 2 a.m. The report said Randolph hopped out of an older-model blue Ford Ranger pickup truck, cursed at Karaskiewicz and shouted at him to mind his own business.
On Friday, Randolph demonstrated how he managed to swivel around enough to activate the cellular phone on his hip while handcuffed in the back seat of Karaskiewicz's police vehicle. He said he was trying to call his girlfriend and he believes that may have angered Karaskiewicz who ordered him to get off the phone.
The car screeched to a halt, he said, adding that one of the car doors swung open and before long the other door was ajar.
He said there was a struggle for the cellphone as he was being dragged to the ground. "I was curled up on the ground, hiding my head because I'm getting pounded on and kicked," recalled Randolph. "The last I saw of the phone was when he (Karaskiewicz) hit me in the head with it."
Court papers indicate Karaskiewicz stopped his cruiser near Union and McClellan streets to transfer Randolph to the transport wagon.
That, according to the document, is where the four other officers met up with Karaskiewicz. Authorities have said Reyell and Derkowski were in one vehicle and Hafensteiner was riding solo. Mallard was behind the wheel of the transport van.
Randolph said that on the way to the Police Department, Mallard would accelerate and then hit the brakes, throwing Mallard around in the vehicle. He said he used his legs to brace himself and avoid being injured.
Inside police headquarters, he said the abuse continued when he refused to take a Breathalyzer and was put into a choke hold.
His girlfriend says after getting the cellphone call from Randolph, she spent several hours calling local police departments trying to locate him.
In May, Randolph admitted in City Court to driving with a revoked license. He was credited with time served and fined $700.
Story From: Albany Times Union
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