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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Friday, June 7, 2002

Police officer beat boy in 1996, jury is told

By David Waite
Advertiser Courts Writer

In a civil trial that began in Circuit Court this week, a former Roosevelt High School student said a routine traffic stop almost six years ago turned violent when a Honolulu police officer punched him in the face, slammed his head into the pavement repeatedly and kneed him in the back of the head several times.

Andrew L. Dupree II, now attending college in Los Angeles, said police officer Harry Coelho struck him behind the knee, dislocating his kneecap, causing excruciating pain that left him hobbled and unable to attend classes for about three weeks.

Stephen Leong, Dupree's lawyer, told the jury in his opening statement Wednesday that Dupree has three claims against Coelho: unnecessary or excessive use of force; assault and battery, and wrongful imprisonment.

Leong said Dupree and two other boys were riding in a van driven by a fourth boy when the van driver made an illegal left turn off Ward Avenue onto King Street the morning of Sept. 26, 1996.

Leong said that while the driver was being given a traffic ticket, Dupree, then 16, asked Coelho and other police officers at the scene why they were ordered out of the van at gunpoint and made to kneel on the pavement with their hands against the van. It was then that Coelho began to beat Dupree, Leong said.

Gale Ching, Coelho's lawyer, told the jury that police initially believed that the van matched the description of a vehicle that had been used in purse snatchings.

Ching said Dupree became "confrontational" and "verbally abusive" while the police officers were questioning the boys and "lunged forward" toward Coelho. Ching said Coelho "reacted defensively and responded appropriately."