MY COMA KO
Punched drunk to floor ’cause I was scared: cop
AN NYPD COP told a jury Tuesday that he clocked a plastered upper Manhattan club patron — who was knocked into a coma when he hit the floor — to protect himself and his pal.
The rowdy reveler was threatening off-duty Officer Ariel Frias, 30, and a friend about 3:30 a.m. on Jan. 8, 2012, at the Mamajuana Cafe on Dyckman St., the officer said Tuesday at his misdemeanor assault trial in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Frias, a regular at the Inwood hotspot, said punching victim Edwin Veloz, 23, first swung at Javier Delarosa, the officer’s buddy.
“He says, ‘I’ll f--- you up . . . I’ll f---ing kill you!’ ” Frias said.
The cop said he also saw what appeared to be a metal object in the fired-up foe’s hand.
“This was a New York second — it happens super fast,” he said.
“I was like, he’s going to attack me too. . . . He was coming toward my direction,” Frias testified.
“I just threw one punch to get myself out of a situation,” he added on direct examination by his attorney Stuart London.
Frias then left the club — but the altercation between the two groups spilled onto the street on the frosty morning.
Frias testified that someone in Veloz’s posse shouted, in Spanish: “You bunch of c-------ers!”
The cop said he tried to drag Delarosa away to “defuse” the situation but could not stop his friend from rumbling with Veloz’s cousin.
On cross-examination, Assistant District Attorney Jeanne Olivo suggested Frias was not in any danger when he punched Veloz, and that surveillance video showed Veloz was unarmed at the time of the attack. Olivo also grilled the cop about why he failed to report what happened to his supervisors and did not assist the victim at the scene.
“Are you aware that the rule requires that if you are a witness or a participant in an incident, that you remain at the scene?” Olivo said. “Now I know that,” Frias said. The incident was caught on shadowy footage which shows Frias inside the crowded establishment sucker-punching an obviously intoxicated Veloz, whose blood alcohol level was 0.26, more than three times the legal limit to drive.
Frias was drinking a cranberry juice because he cannot have alcohol or smoke due to a medical condition, he said.
Veloz suffered lasting neurological damage and remained in a coma for weeks.
Closing arguments in the case are scheduled for Wednesday morning.