Racial bias raised in Palo Alto police brutality trial - Black Man in Car Too Long- Beat Down

Originally publishd in The San Francisco Chronicle MARCH 23, 2005 Copyright 2005 The Chronicle Publishing Co.

By Maria Alicia Gaura

A man testifying in the brutality trial of two Palo Alto police officers told a Santa Clara County jury Tuesday that he felt trouble coming when one officer drove past the car he was sitting in and looked directly into his eyes.

"I've been black for a long time," said Albert Hopkins, 61, adding that as an African American man he was frequently targeted by police for trivial reasons. "He looks at me, and I look at him, and something in my mind says it's going to be a long night. I'm going to see him again. Something is going to happen."

Hopkins is the key prosecution witness in the trial that began last week in a San Jose courtroom. Palo Alto officers Craig Lee, 42, and Michael Kan, 27, are charged with felony police brutality and misdemeanor assault for allegedly beating Hopkins with batons and pepper-spraying him July 13, 2003. If convicted, they face up to three years in jail. The defendants, whose lawyers say they used force to restrain Hopkins because he was uncooperative and threatening, plan to take the stand in their own defense, and are expected to testify in one to two weeks.

Hopkins told the jury that at the time of the confrontation, he was estranged from his wife and had spent two years living in his car to avoid selling the family's Palo Alto home, where his three children lived.

"At the time, I was living in my car, and taking all the money I made to my family," Hopkins said, breaking into tears several times during his testimony. "At times I had only one dollar per day to live on. I would go to the Jack in the Box and buy one hamburger, and cut it in half for lunch and dinner."

He said he worked days for $10 an hour at the Marriott Hotel, and had developed a routine for parking late at night when neighbors were less likely to be frightened by his presence.

He told the jury that on the night he was beaten, he saw the police car pass his car twice before it finally pulled up behind him, shining a spotlight on his car. Hopkins said he was upset.

"I was tired, I had worked an 8-hour day, and I was just trying to rest before I went to bed," Hopkins told the jury. "I felt like (Lee) was contacting me because I was black."

Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Peter Waite asked if defiance was the right approach.

"Why not just tone it down?" Waite asked. "Say 'yes sir,' 'no sir'?"

"I was well within my rights," Hopkins hotly replied.

Hopkins said Lee ordered him to stay in his car and demanded to see his identification. But Hopkins said that when he rummaged through the glove compartment, he saw the officer's hand move to his gun and decided he would sit still rather than risk getting shot.

Kan arrived to back up Lee, Hopkins said, and tried to yank him from the car, but failed. Hopkins told the jury that he emerged from the car and was beaten with steel batons and sprayed with pepper spray.

Under cross-examination, defense attorneys Craig Brown and Harry Stern challenged Hopkins' version of events, saying the officers gave ample verbal warnings and that Hopkins acted aggressively, actually pulling Kan partly into the car when the slightly built officer tried to yank Hopkins out.

Brown asked Hopkins why he didn't explain to Lee why he stopped searching for his wallet and identification. "Did you think he was going to shoot you for speaking?" Brown asked.

"People have been shot for less," Hopkins replied.

Hopkins appeared flustered under the defense's questioning and contradicted himself repeatedly. At several points, the witness grew visibly agitated and yelled at the defense attorneys, before Superior Court Judge Andrea Bryan ended proceedings early.

Hopkins was never charged with a crime in the incident with police, and the city of Palo Alto later settled a civil complaint from him for $250,000 -- two facts that will not be revealed to the jury in this case.