There was only one man in the holding cell of a downtown Orlando police station. Yet, an officer claims he did not realize the painful shrieks he heard were from that single inmate.
This month that officer along with another fellow cop have finally been fired more than a year after the incident.
Officer Peter Delio arrested 41-year-old Robert Liese in August 2014 for a dine and dash at a local bar.
The policeman then took the drunken man to a station on Washington Avenue in downtown Orlando. Allegedly the cop kicked him in his stomach when loading him into his patrol car.
In CCTV footage from the police station, the man is seen being led into a cell; he is already limping as he walks inside.
Minutes after being locked up, the frustrated inmate bangs his head on a glass window on the door, breaking it with the impact.
Next, Delio storms into the cell, while another officer waits at the door.
Delio is then seen mercilessly kicking the man in the abdomen as he doubles over in pain, he then lifts him with the left side of his body and places him on the floor.
The two police officers have a brief dialogue and Delio picks up Liese and takes him out of the cell to another holding area.
The enraged police officer, it turns out, had kicked the unsuspecting victim so severely that he ended up rupturing his spleen.
Following this, Liese’s feet were tied while he was in agonizing pain and called out at least 35 times for medical attention over a period of 90 minutes. Both Delio and Faulkner ignored his incessant pleas.
In fact, in a separate footage several policeman are heard snickering at the victim.
At around the one hour and 50 minute mark paramedics arrived and confirmed that he had indeed been suffering from internal injuries.
Liese was then rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery and surgeons removed his spleen.
It turns out on the one occasion that Faulkner did respond to Liese, he did not report that the inmate had requested medical assistance – a fact that he lied about in later investigations as well.
Despite this horrific episode being the fourth reported case of use of excessive force by police at the time, Chief John Mina said it was not reflective of the Orlando Police Department’s culture. Nonetheless, he did admit that even a single such case is “one too many“.
Four months after the incident Delio was suspended for a week without pay – arguably, a small slap on the wrist.
However, in March this year he was arrested and charged with felony battery.
Last week, Delio and Faulkner were fired. Both have been accused of lying to internal affairs investigators.
While the former claimed that he did not think it was Liese who was screaming in the cell, the latter wrote a false report stating that the inmate refused when he checked if there was need for medical assistance.
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