Abner Louima

Mr. Louima suffered torture at the hands of NYPD officers after being arrested, beaten, and finally sodomized with a toilet plunger.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/l/abner_louima/index.html


On Aug. 9, 1997, more than three years into Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani’s first term, a 30-year-old Haitian immigrant named Abner Louima was arrested and brutalized by a white police officer inside the restroom of the 70th Precinct station house in Brooklyn. The attack became a national symbol of police brutality and fed perceptions that white police officers in New York were harassing or abusing young black men as part of a citywide crackdown on crime.

One officer, Justin A. Volpe, admitted in court in May 1999 that he had rammed a broken broomstick into Mr. Louima’s rectum, and then had thrust it in his face. He said he had mistakenly believed that Mr. Louima had punched him in the head during a street brawl outside a nightclub, but he acknowledged that he had also intended to humiliate the handcuffed immigrant. He left the force and was later sentenced to 30 years in prison. The commanders of the 70th Precinct were replaced within days of the assault.