Joined
·
2,231 Posts
Sounds like this guy was a flaming a**hole.
================================================================
By Erica Noonan, Globe Staff, 3/14/2004
A Needham fire captain accused of assaulting a Needham police offcer during the arrest of the captain's son has filed a criminal complaint of his own, contending that he was manhandled and spit upon by police offcers during the incident.
The complaint against Needham police offcers Shawn Ryan and Loren Stead, filed in Dedham District Court last week, alleges that the officers grabbed Captain William Byrnes, threw him to the ground, and kneed him in the back of the head.
An attorney for Needham's police union called the complaint `nonsense.'
`This is an attempt by Captain Byrnes to create some leverage on his own behalf and wage a public relations campaign," said Brian Rogal, who represents Ryan and Stead.
`He is embarrassed by his own conduct and is trying to claim that the police officers did something wrong."
The Feb. 10 scuffe on Ellis Street started after Ryan pulled over 20-year-old Timothy Byrnes and a friend on suspicion of marijuana possession. The younger Byrnes initially refused to be handcuffed and used his cellphone to call his father, who arrived at the scene in a Fire Department pickup truck.
The elder Byrnes and Ryan argued about the fate of the Byrnes family Honda sedan, which contained a small amount of marijuana and was still being searched, according to police reports.
Police said that when Ryan tried to block Byrnes from entering the car, the fire captain shoved the officer out of the way. Both men fell to the pavement, fighting, and Stead eventually helped Ryan subdue and handcuff Byrnes. But Byrnes says that he only approached the car to see if his son was inside, and that Ryan and Stead escalated the situation.
Ryan grabbed Byrnes while Stead elbowed him in the jaw, the captain said. The officers then allegedly forced Byrnes to the ground and wrenched his arm backward.
"I yelled that my arm couldn't go back any further, that I'm a 58-year-old man and my arm wouldn't bend any more," Byrnes wrote in his own account of the fight. "They cuffed both hands behind my back as tight as the cuffs would go, while forcing my head into the asphalt.
"I kept yelling that I have never been humiliated or treated like this in my life, it's a disgrace. . . . Ofgcer Ryan told me to act like a [expletive] man."
`Captain Byrnes had no business being on the scene, and no business interfering with the police offcers. No one has the right to come down and get in the way of police business," Rogal said.
Needham's Board of Selectmen has asked Town Administrator Kate Fitzpatrick to conduct a formal investigation into the incident. She said a civil service hearing on the matter would probably be scheduled within the next two weeks.
================================================================
By Erica Noonan, Globe Staff, 3/14/2004
A Needham fire captain accused of assaulting a Needham police offcer during the arrest of the captain's son has filed a criminal complaint of his own, contending that he was manhandled and spit upon by police offcers during the incident.
The complaint against Needham police offcers Shawn Ryan and Loren Stead, filed in Dedham District Court last week, alleges that the officers grabbed Captain William Byrnes, threw him to the ground, and kneed him in the back of the head.
An attorney for Needham's police union called the complaint `nonsense.'
`This is an attempt by Captain Byrnes to create some leverage on his own behalf and wage a public relations campaign," said Brian Rogal, who represents Ryan and Stead.
`He is embarrassed by his own conduct and is trying to claim that the police officers did something wrong."
The Feb. 10 scuffe on Ellis Street started after Ryan pulled over 20-year-old Timothy Byrnes and a friend on suspicion of marijuana possession. The younger Byrnes initially refused to be handcuffed and used his cellphone to call his father, who arrived at the scene in a Fire Department pickup truck.
The elder Byrnes and Ryan argued about the fate of the Byrnes family Honda sedan, which contained a small amount of marijuana and was still being searched, according to police reports.
Police said that when Ryan tried to block Byrnes from entering the car, the fire captain shoved the officer out of the way. Both men fell to the pavement, fighting, and Stead eventually helped Ryan subdue and handcuff Byrnes. But Byrnes says that he only approached the car to see if his son was inside, and that Ryan and Stead escalated the situation.
Ryan grabbed Byrnes while Stead elbowed him in the jaw, the captain said. The officers then allegedly forced Byrnes to the ground and wrenched his arm backward.
"I yelled that my arm couldn't go back any further, that I'm a 58-year-old man and my arm wouldn't bend any more," Byrnes wrote in his own account of the fight. "They cuffed both hands behind my back as tight as the cuffs would go, while forcing my head into the asphalt.
"I kept yelling that I have never been humiliated or treated like this in my life, it's a disgrace. . . . Ofgcer Ryan told me to act like a [expletive] man."
`Captain Byrnes had no business being on the scene, and no business interfering with the police offcers. No one has the right to come down and get in the way of police business," Rogal said.
Needham's Board of Selectmen has asked Town Administrator Kate Fitzpatrick to conduct a formal investigation into the incident. She said a civil service hearing on the matter would probably be scheduled within the next two weeks.
