New York City Cop Acquitted Three Years After Punching Suspect Who Refused to Leave Apple Store NYPD20Pct/Twitter

A New York City cop who got into a scuffle while escorting a suspect out of a Manhattan Apple Store has been acquitted after Democrat District Attorney (DA) Alvin Bragg slapped him with assault charges.

Officer Salvatore Provenzano, a 17-year veteran of the New York Police Department (NYPD), was charged with third-degree assault in 2023 — two years after a body camera captured the October 2021 interaction between him and Kamal Cheikhaoui, a man who had repeatedly refused to leave the Upper West Side store, CBS News reported.

Cheikhaoui, whom the New York Post described as a “repeat offender,” was reportedly acting “unruly” in the Apple Store before security asked him to leave, prompting Provenzano and other cops to step in to remove him.

Body camera footage that another responding officer captured begins with Cheikhaoui loudly demanding to purchase merchandise and trying to push past security as Provenzano takes him by the arm and leads him toward the exit. When the suspect gets loose from his grasp and suddenly turns, the officer strikes him in the face:

Cheikhaoui fell to the floor, and officers struggled to handcuff him until Provenzano's partner pepper sprayed him, the West Side Rag reported of the case. 

While the suspect did not suffer injuries and Provenzano did not have a history of being violent on the job, DA Bragg's office convened a grand jury, which indicted the officer two years later.

Though Provenzano was facing up to one year in prison on the assault charge, he declined to take a plea deal for a lesser charge of harassment in the second degree. Instead, he took his chances in a trial. 

“My client truly believed he was about to be struck — and there was one punch,” the cop's attorney, Stu London, told the court in July.

London also claimed that Cheikhaoui had previously gone after store security and had been banned from at least one other Apple Store.

“All this officer did was attempt to escort [the man] out of the location,” London told reporters outside the courthouse.

“As he puts his hand on his elbow to have him leave, [the man] immediately flings his arm back and tenses his body, and this officer reasonably thought he was gonna be struck, and he hits him one time, and he goes down with no injuries at all.”

Police union representatives happily announced on Thursday that the charges had finally been dropped.

The Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York (PBA), which represents more than 50,000 active and retired NYPD officers, said it was “grateful to get justice, but Manhattan prosecutors should never have brought the case in the first place.”

“This DA has to stop targeting New York City police officers and go after criminals. It needs to end now,” PBA President Patrick Hendry said during a press briefing.

NOT GUILTY: Our @NYPD20Pct brother has been acquitted of all charges for defending himself against a repeat offender causing chaos in an Upper West Side Apple store. We’re grateful to get justice, but Manhattan prosecutors should never have brought the case in the first place. pic.twitter.com/zxxmBNB33B

— NYC PBA (@NYCPBA) April 25, 2024

In a statement that the New York Post obtained, Hendry said Provenzano was “simply doing his job” in removing the repeat offender from the store.

“We’re grateful that the court recognized that reality and acquitted him, but unfortunately, a lot of damage has been done,” Hendry said. “A good, hardworking cop has been sidelined for nearly a year, and police officers across this borough are wondering if their careers will also be derailed by baseless charges.”

“Manhattan prosecutors need to stop wasting time and resources targeting cops over nonsense and start working with us to address real public safety issues.”

London also celebrated the acquittal but questioned “why the Manhattan DA even brought this case in the first place.”

“My client’s gratified that the judge saw through this and realized this was not an assault case at all — this was just an officer defending himself from what he thought was an aggressive action by the individual he was dealing with,” London told the Post on Thursday.

“It was a very minor case that, unfortunately, the Manhattan DA’s office turned into much more than it ever was,” he added.

Even though the case was tossed out, Manhattan Acting Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley told the court that Bragg's office was not wrong to bring forth the case.

“We work in close partnership with the NYPD every day, and I have immense respect for the officers in uniform,” Bragg said in a statement. “I thank our prosecutors for their hard work and Judge Wiley for his careful and thoughtful consideration of this matter.”

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