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From the restaurant video
Yes, the tape was violent, Superior Court Judge Donald J. Volkert Jr. said, but Rios did his job in subduing 49-year-old Ronnie Holloway.
The judge relied in large measure on the word of Spotswood Police Capt. Michael Zarro, an expert in the use of police force, who said that a suspect needn’t be throwing punches to be considered combative.
“I did what was proper,” Rios said after the 11 a.m. May 2009 incident at the corner of Main Avenue and Summer Street, which began with Holloway being asked to zip his hoodie to cover his exposed chest.
“I did what I was trained to do under circumstances that existed at that time,” Rios said.
Although brought to the city lockup, Holloway was later released without charges. Passaic Mayor Alex Bianco suspended Rios, now a 9-year veteran, with pay pending the results of an investigation by the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office, which led to the trial before Volkert.
Defense attorney Anthony Iacullo, said that Rios “did what was necessary to effectuate an arrest. It was not a beating.”
After a five-day trial, the judge agreed.
“If this video were to be viewed by a casual observer without context — it looks like a lot of force was used,” Volkert said.
However, several witnesses who reviewed it deemed Rios’s actions “textbook” police work, the judge said.
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“Without the audio and video moving faster then normal speed its hard to tell if excessive force was used,” a New Jersey law enforcement officer told CLIFFVIEW PILOT soon after the incident. “He turned on [the] Officer and he was approached to be placed in cuffs and with the street light there blocking partial view.
“We don’t need to jump the gun here.”
Indeed, another officer said that Rios did exactly what police are trained to do: “Strike, re-evaluate, give commands, repeat as necessary until compliance is gained. No beating or wild swinging.”
Holloway reportedly said he was just walking along, his sweatshirt open on a warm night, when one of the officers asked him to zip it. The rest is on the silent, stuttering video.
His mother said she told police after the incident that he was schizophrenic and relied on medication. Yet, she said, they released him from the hospital soon after and allowed him to walk home.
Rios cried and supporters — including several police officers — cheered after Volkert read his verdict in Paterson. Had he been convicted, the officer could have been looking at several years in prison.
Now, he will obviously be reinstated.
Volkert had harsh words for the officer’s partner at the time, Erica Rivera, who is seen on the videotape walking away, getting into the radio car and pacing around while the struggle continued.
Rivera was first suspended and then later fired for lying in her report — not knowing that the incident was being videotaped by a camera mounted above a nearby restaurant.
Her father-in-law is former Passaic Mayor Samuel Rivera, who went to federal prison for taking a $5,000 bribe. Curiously, the ex-mayor — a former professional wrestler — drew headlines in 1980 by slashing his stomach after his partner killed a suspected drug dealer. Rivera later confessed he’d done it to try and cover an unprovoked slaying.
Volkert said Erica Rivera “tried to twist facts and fabricate testimony to support an injured officer claim.” The lie, he said, “cost her her job.”
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