A member of the Buffalo police force, Officer Adrian P. Neal, was cleared of charges involving excessive enforcement in a recent verdict on Wednesday, according to his defense team. The case, originating from an incident on West Chippewa Street in August 2022, involved allegations of assault, record falsification, and issuing false reports. The proof that played a pivotal role in Officer Neal’s case was footage obtained from body cameras worn by police officers. Rodney O. Personius, Neal’s defense attorney, argued that the footage provided clear justification for the officer’s actions.
In a special delegate role, the Cattaraugus County District Attorney’s Office took charge of the prosecution in light of ongoing cases linking the Erie County DA’s Office and the man Neal supposedly assaulted. Personius explained this procedure before extending the discussion to the court proceedings. The charge claiming that Officer Neal utilized the ground as a ‘dangerous instrument,’ – a second-degree assault – was dismissed by Erie County Judge Suzanne Maxwell Barnes just before jury deliberation.
The dismissal followed the judge’s ruling, which found no conclusive proof to indicate that the man’s head struck the ground during his handcuffing and in the process of bringing him to the ground. The representation for Officer Neal came from both Rodney O. Personius and Joseph M. Guerra III, two defense lawyers.
To decipher the sequence of the incident, Neal’s attorneys highlighted the sequence of the events of the night on August 21, 2022. Officer Neal, now 33, was involved in a Saturday night through Sunday morning task force assigned to the Chippewa region. During this detail, he encountered the man later accused him of assaulting, for the first time in the vicinity of Franklin and West Chippewa streets.
The encounter followed the man’s involvement in a dispute with a woman during which the man hit her. With the woman declining to press charges and it being stated that she had struck the man before he reciprocated, the police, including Neal, did not arrest him. Instead, the man was instructed to vacate the premises.
Approximately an hour later, Officer Neal and his colleagues had another run-in with the same man. The man was now acting aggressively and pushing another man against a barricade. The officer recognized him from the earlier incident involving the woman. Officers prompted him to leave the area, making this instruction known around 10 times.
While the man was directed to move away from Chippewa towards Delaware Avenue, he instigated a fight with Neal multiple times. Officer Neal took a passive stance, walking away on three different occasions. However, after the third retreat, bystanders alerted Neal that the man was tailing him. Neal reacted by intending to direct the man via the waist back towards Delaware.
However, in an unexpected twist, the man slapped away Neal’s hand. The officer, at that point, had full grounding to make an arrest. However, Neal opted to direct the man to depart the nearby vicinity once again, reaching for his waist to ensure no weapon was present. He reacted strongly, attempting to twist out of the officer’s grasp, leading Neal to decide upon arrest.
The arrest took a violent turn, with Neal punching the man twice before wrestling him to the ground. The man resisted surrendering his hands, refusing to place them behind his back as instructed by the officer. In this light, Neal aimed five additional strikes at the man while he was grounded.
Even after the man lost consciousness, the situation remained complicated. He remained unconscious for a duration of 15 minutes, post which he was finally able to be handcuffed. Medical reports confirmed that he had incurred injuries, namely facial lacerations and a ruptured eardrum, though the man claimed more damages, according to Personius.
In defense of Neal, his attorneys presented a thorough examination of the body-cam evidence, sectioning off the video into 30 frames for each second. This precise scrutiny unveiled a series of the man’s aggressive actions toward Neal, actions that aren’t noticeable when viewed at a standard playback speed.
A total of seven officers, including Neal himself, were called upon for their testimonies during the trial. A former Police Lieutenant from Buffalo gave expert witness on the force used by Neal and declared it as justified.
The jury reached a consensus on July 31 to absolve Neal of the four persisting charges, which consisted of misdemeanor assault, a felony allegation of distorting business documents, and two additional misdemeanors for issuing a false written declaration. The latter charges claimed Neal untruthfully reported the man’s resistance to arrest and hindrance of governmental processes.
The charge revolving around the falsification of business records implied Neal’s intent to deceive the Police Department by covering up an assault. At the time of the episode, Neal was a police officer for approximately two and a half years, having been hired in 2019, as stated by Personius.
Even after the acquittal, Neal is still subjected to administrative allegations from the Police Department and his status remains suspended pending an internal probe, stated by Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia. The Buffalo Police Benevolent Association, on Facebook, declared its belief that the criminal charges against Neal should never have been initiated.