Man charged at Schenectady graduation offers account in filing

SCHENECTADY — A man who says he was violently arrested ahead of the city school district’s June graduation ceremony claims officers attacked him after he questioned their treatment of another parent.

Clifton R. Rock, 43, of the Bronx, gave his account of the incident as he filed the precursor to a possible lawsuit against the city over the arrest.

He alleged that officers laughed at a mother who couldn’t get into the packed theater to see her son graduate. Rock says officers attacked him after he questioned their reaction to the woman.

“The officers’ laughing abruptly stopped,” Rock wrote. “I heard one officer respond, ‘No it is not a laughing matter.’ Within moments I was grabbed by the neck from behind and placed in a choke-hold by the first officer, while the second officer leaned in on my chest … which restricted my movement as well as labored my breathing.”

Rock said that while one officer held him the second one punched him in the face and jaw three times.

Rock filed the notice with the city last week. No attorney for him is listed.

Police arrested Rock on June 22 outside Schenectady High School’s graduation ceremony at Proctors and charged him with resisting arrest and menacing. He later pleaded guilty to violation disorderly conduct.

The incident gained widespread attention because of a video posted to Facebook that showed Rock being punched multiple times by a city police officer as another officer restrained him inside the arcade at Proctors.

City Corporation Counsel Carl Falotico declined to comment on the filing Monday. But, days after the arrest, Police Chief Eric Clifford gave a different account of what happened.

Clifford said the incident began when Rock would not stop cursing. The officers told him he would be arrested if he didn’t stop cursing, but he continued, Clifford said. In a news release, police said the man’s behavior created a “hazardous environment.”

Rock allegedly took a swing at officers as they moved to handcuff him. Rock then resisted arrest, so the officers began “placing strikes” in an attempt to subdue him, Clifford said then.

The video showed the end of the incident, not the beginning, Clifford said then.

“Knowing all the information that I know,” the officers’ behavior was appropriate, Clifford said then.

Rock’s account of the incident began as he entered to watch his daughter graduate. When he entered, he spotted a woman he didn’t know arguing with two officers.

The woman was pleading with them to be allowed inside the theater to see her son graduate. Her son stood next to her in cap and gown.

Doors to the ceremony closed at 9 a.m. Witnesses said the incident happened abut 9:15 a.m. The district is looking at possible changes to next year’s event at Proctors.

“During the confrontation I witnessed the officer make a mockery of the woman and her son, all while laughing and offering this desperate woman no professional consolation as working police officers,” Rock wrote. 

“As a concerned parent, I asked: ‘How could you laugh, when this isn’t a laughing matter,'” Rock wrote. 

The officers then attacked him, he wrote.

Rock said he was taken to the hospital for observation and treatment of injuries and released the same day.

He described his injuries as physical and mental, “brought on by the use of excessive force” by “traumatic physical and verbal abuse” from the officers. He suffered a badly sprained arm and pain to his neck, he wrote. He also suffers from severe headaches, dizziness and occasional vomiting.

“As a citizen and parent, I was not treated in accordance with the professional standards becoming of an officer of the law who is appointed to serve and protect our community,” Rock wrote. 

Categories: News, Schenectady County