Akhenaton R. Bonaparte was sitting by a window at a south Baltimore restaurant in October, eating pizza and reading with a pair of teenage girls he?d mentored when, he said, a pair of men walked in and started picking an argument.
Stumbling and smelling of alcohol, the men hurled racial slurs at Bonaparte, poked him in the chest and then allegedly got Bonaparte to the ground, Bonaparte said.
At some point, after the handcuffs came out, Bonaparte realized the men were police officers, said Bonaparte in court documents and an interview.
“I don?t know if these guys are, like, trying to rob me or set me up or a case of mistaken identity,” Bonaparte said.
Once other officers arrived and Bonaparte was taken out of handcuffs, he said, “my thinking was, what can I do to make sure that this doesn?t happen to anybody else?”
Officers Jack Odom Jr. and Michael Brassell were scheduled to start trial Friday in Baltimore City District Court on assault charges stemming from the Oct. 22 incident at Maria D?s restaurant in the 1000 block of Light Street.
Both men are suspended with pay, a police department spokesman said.
According to court documents, Bonaparte told the officers repeatedly to leave the groupalone, and not to touch him.
When one of the officers followed Bonaparte outside, the documents said, Bonaparte hit him ? igniting the fight that landed him on the hood of a car, in a choke hold and eventually handcuffed.
Bonaparte said he came out of that night bruised, cut and with a dislocated shoulder. He?s been in therapy, he said, dealing with lasting anxiety about police officers ? and he?s been frustrated the past few months as the case has been postponed.
“I want to see them go to jail and send a message to rogue police officers,” Bonaparte said. “The system is so broke.”
