Michael Stewart
Michael Stewart was beaten by transit officers in a subway station at 14th Street and 1st Avenue. The subway station at 14th and 1st Ave is located in Manhattan; in northern end of the Lower East Side. 14th Street is the cutoff from the Lower East Side and Stuyvesant Park. The Lower East Side consists of China Town, Two Bridges and the Lower East Side (district). To the west of the Lower East Side is Greenwich Village, Soho, Noho and Little Italy. South of the Lower East Side is Wall Street, Tribeca and Ellis Island. Adjacent to the Lower East Side is Midtown, Times Square and Madison Square. Even though Michael Stewart died at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan, he lived in Clinton Hills, Brooklyn with his mother and father. Clinton Hill is near downtown Brooklyn, Fort Greene and Brooklyn Heights.
Michael Stewart was beaten in a subway station at 14th Street and 1st Avenue, which is in the Lower East Side. The Lower East Side is a very diverse community. The Lower East Side also has had an extremely diverse history. In the 1800s, the Lower East Side was host of many different ethic and racial backgrounds: freed African American slaves, Irish immigrants who came to America because of the potato famine and Italians all lived in this one community called “The Lower East Side.” Today the Lower East is not of a similar make up as it was in the 1800s. The Lower East Side consists of 161,617 people: 47,392 Whites; 52,217 Hispanics and 13,387 Blacks. The Lower East Side also has a very large population of Asians. Michael Stewart was a minority in the district where he was murdered. Michael Stewart lived in Clinton Hills, Brooklyn. In the 1800s, Clinton Hills was a very elegant neighborhood; only Brooklyn’s wealthiest citizens could afford to live there. Clinton Hills was notorious for it’s mansions and brownstones. But during the Great Depression, Clinton Hills became a very poor neighborhood. The once beautiful mansions were being turned into low-income housing projects. In the 1970s, Clinton Hills was under going gentrification; the neighborhood was trying to be restored. At one point, Clinton Hills was turning into such a dump that New York City has the Mayor's Slum Clearance Committee demolish five-blocks so it could be renewed. Where Michael Stewart lived, he was not a minority. The Clinton Hills, Downtown Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights district was predominately Blacks. Out of the 94,534 people in that district, 44,670 of the people where Black. There were 30,144 whites and 16,407 Hispanics. Where Michael Stewart lived, he was not “out of place.” But where Mr. Stewart was murdered, he was “out of place.”
On September 15, 1983 a 25 year-old black man was arrested for scribbling graffiti on the subway. Michael Stewart, resident of Clinton Hills, Brooklyn, was arrested not only for the graffiti count, but also for possession of a marijuana cigarette stub. The police record says Stewart resisted arrest, and therefore was handcuffed. However, one of three witnesses said they saw Stewart thrown to the ground and beaten. On the way to the district transit headquarters Stewart began kicking the white officers, and they taped his legs together. Michael Stewart was arrested at 2:50 am and at 3:22 am arrived at Bellevue Hospital Center. What happened in those 32 minutes is still a mystery. He arrived at the hospital in a coma, handcuffed and legs taped together. Dr. Robert Wolf was denied access to Mr. Stewart for more than two hours, and once he examined him he said, “it would be very unlikely that his condition was due to a struggle because the injuries were all over the body.” Stewart died about 2 weeks later of what was thought, at first, to be cardiac arrest. Later Dr. Elliot Gross changed the cause of death to an injury to the spinal cord in the upper neck. Police brutality suits usually take about 5 years to resolve. Carrie Stewart, the victim’s mother, said, “as long as it takes, we’re willing to take that long.” (Note: It is unknown why Mr. Stewart did not go to the transit office).
The New York City Police Department is notorious for it’s brutality, so when Michael Stewart was beaten into a coma (and eventually died) by transit police officers, New York residents were not surprised, but they were outraged. Living in New York, one gets accustomed to these “daily” police beatings. In an article from the New York Times on the Michael Stewart beating it also said that “The Police Department presented its own study last month of the 98 allegations of brutality” (NY Times). But when the victim of beating dies, that is when New Yorkers are outraged. Many black activists did not take this incident lightly. The most notable protest was of twenty black civil leaders, including City Councilwoman , Mary Pinkett. The protesters wanted to speak with Manhattan District Attorney, Robert Morgenthau about the case. Robert Morgenthau was the person who could drop the charges against the transit police officers. The parents of Michael Stewart put both a civil and criminal law suit against the eleven transit officers who beat their son. The parents of Michael Stewart were outraged when they heard that a spokesman of the Transit Authority say, “We deny that he was beaten,” (NY Times). The Stewarts still went on with the law suit. When the Carrie Stewart found out that police brutality law suits take an average of five years to complete, she said, “As long as it takes, we’re willing to take that long.” Clearly the parents of Michael Stewart only want justice.
Michael Stewart, who’s cause of death was first thought cardiac arrest then confirmed as spinal damage, damage caused in the thirty-sum minutes between arrest on charges of graffiti in the 14th St. subway and admission to Bellevue. The defense (the notorious Robert M. Morganthau*) claimed that he was restrained with necessary force. Three of the transit cops involved were indicted for beating Stewart to his eventual death (second degree manslaughter), but none were convicted, why?, “lack of evidence.” (yahoo.com) The coroner “lost” the autopsy report that would confirm that he was strangled among other things. There then was a civil trial where a key witness, Robert Rodriguez, an auxiliary policeman, was afraid to testify. Rodriguez’s was ready to testify, but his lawyer advised against it saying “[the DA] has more interest in bringing about a perjury charge’ than an ‘indictment of the police” (New York Times, Nov. 2 ‘83)
*Who was, is, but hopefully not for much longer (at 82 years old today), the local NYC DA, known by reputation for representing cops indicted for brutality or other such charges and them acquitted.
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