PO Esposito Kills Gay Banker/Defarra Gaymon/ No Charges!

A Month Ago a Grand Jury declined to indict police officer Edward Esposito for any crime 

involving his killing of a CEO of a Bank in Atlanta Defarra Gaymon 46. He was in Jersey for a reunion and made a mistake to go to  a park were a homophobe officer was looking for gays.  He killed this decent man who's only crime was to be gay, be in the closet and maybe was looking for someone to hook up. I guess That most've been a capital crime on this officer's mind. Some interesting facts have come out on the part of the officer. It seems he was only arresting gays in cases that were never prosecuted, dismissed when the defendant pleaded not guilty or the defendant pleaded guilty to a small crime without fighting it...and we know why that happens with closeted gay guys...that is why they are seem as easy target by some cops in certain areas of the country. You can find more past information on this case by doing a search right from this blog entering Defarra Gaymon. 

Unfortunately The last evidence available to me is as of July 2011. I have followed this case for a year now and anything that I can find out that comes up I will publish. I think is a mistake to let cases like this just get filed away and forgotten, like if Mr. Defarra died of Natural causes and nobody was responsible. There is someone out there, someone who by his own actions if not words does not like gays- someone with a shield and a gun still walking the beat.  

The Sheriff’s Office released records on 167 arrests or investigations in 14 parks, with 148 of those arrests or investigations occurring in Branch Brook Park or South Mountain Reservation, which is located in West Orange, Maplewood, and Millburn. Of those 148, 130 were arrests for lewdness or criminal sexual contact of men who may have been cruising for sex or, in some cases, were observed having sex with other men.

These are in regards to Esposito and how he was conducting his search and arrest of gay men (source Gay city News):

A consistent theme in the 130 reports by plainclothes officers involved in what were clearly organized stings was that they were walking through a park when a man, without any prompting from the officer, exposed himself or grabbed the officer’s crotch.

In a 2005 complaint concerning an arrest in South Mountain Reservation, the officer wrote that the suspect “approached the undersigned and engaged in small conversation. The suspect then grabbed the undersigned’s crotch area, then began to walk away stating to undersigned ‘Come On.’”

A 2007 record on an arrest in that park reads, “Then with out warning or saying a single word, [the defendant] leaned back and grabbed the undersigned groin area, causing pain and discomfort.”

A report on a 2010 arrest in Branch Brook Park states the defendant “stopped in front of me less than a foot away (facing me). [The defendant] asked ‘Do you have a big dick?’ As [the defendant] was speaking he grabbed my penis with his right hand and squeezed it.”

A 2007 report on a arrest in Branch Brook Park has the defendant asking in Spanish, “Do You Want Me To Suck Your Dick?,” and continues, “At the time Detective advised him that he was not into that. The suspect then grabbed Detective hand and asked him to walk with him. Detective pulled his hand back, and the suspect then became aggressive by grabbing for the crotch area of Detective causing Detective to jump back.”

To believe these assertions, one would have to believe that nearly every time a man made an unwelcome advance by exposing himself or groping another man in these two parks, that man just happened to do it in front of or to a plainclothes officer. That is unlikely at best, and that same issue arose in a 2004 lewdness arrest of a gay man in the New Jersey section of the Palisades Interstate Park, which is not patrolled by the Essex County Sheriff’s Office.

 adamfoxie*

The following report is from the NYTimes posted by  MICHAEL WILSON and SERGE F. KOVALESKI


A grand jury in Essex County, N.J., has declined to bring criminal charges against a police officer who fatally shot an unarmed banking executive from Atlanta last July during a confrontation in a park.

The banker, Defarra Gaymon, 48, had been in the state for an alumni reunion for his class at Montclair High School. The officer, Edward Esposito, 30, now a nine-year veteran of the Essex County Sheriff’s Office, was patrolling under cover in Branch Brook Park in Newark.

Around 6 p.m. on July 16, after chasing down a man and arresting him, Officer Esposito realized he had dropped his handcuffs in the woods and went to retrieve them, the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office said. The account of what followed came solely from Officer Esposito.

“We made an effort to find out if there was anyone who saw the events in the park,” said Katherine Carter, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office. “No witnesses ever came forward to say they saw all, or a portion, of the encounter.”

Ms. Carter declined to comment on what evidence was presented to the grand jury, which decided on Friday not to indict the officer. The acting Essex County prosecutor, Carolyn A. Murray, told the Gaymon family late Monday, Ms. Carter said.

The family is suing Officer Esposito and the sheriff’s office in State Superior Court in Essex County. Christopher W. Kinum, a lawyer for the Gaymons, said, “We don’t feel like we got a legitimate investigation out of the prosecutor’s office.”

Charles J. Sciarra, a lawyer for the officer, said his client had testified voluntarily before the grand jury. “There was never a doubt that the use of force was an absolute last resort and justified in all aspects,” Mr. Sciarra said.

Officer Esposito has said he was bending down to pick up his handcuffs when he was approached by Mr. Gaymon, who was “engaged in a sexual act,” the prosecutor’s office said. When Officer Esposito tried to arrest him, “Mr. Gaymon appeared to panic, assaulted the police officer and fled,” the prosecutor’s office said.

The officer cornered him near a pond. Mr. Gaymon threatened to kill the officer, “then lunged at and attempted to disarm the officer while reaching into his own pocket,” the prosecutor’s office said the officer had reported. Officer Esposito, “fearing for his life,” fired once.

The descriptions of uncharacteristically violent behavior by Mr. Gaymon shocked his friends and family, and his employees at the Credit Union of Atlanta, where he was the chief executive.

“Defarra Gaymon was a peaceful and successful man who was shot and killed while unarmed in broad daylight in Branch Brook Park,” Mr. Kinum said. “His wife, parents and four young children miss him immensely.”

He said the family “will not rest until the truth comes out and we establish that the undercover operation and the killing were completely unjustified.”

The park is a longtime spot for men seeking anonymous sex, and has been the site of many police sting operations. Lawyers for men arrested there say the officers can be overly aggressive in how they approach suspects.

A gay-rights group that has criticized the sheriff’s office’s conduct, Garden State Equality, called on Tuesday for a federal civil rights investigation.

“Under the law, a federal civil rights investigation becomes possible when the grand jury phase is complete,” said Steven Goldstein, the organization’s chairman. “Garden State Equality will work with county authorities on preserving quality of life in the parks that do not rely on undercover patrols. That system has proven ineffective and puts civil rights at risk.”

Mr. Sciarra, the officer’s lawyer, said he believed that the grand jury’s decision should put the matter to rest.

“Our respects remain with Mr. Gaymon’s family,” he said. “However, while we do not expect an apology from the special interests that made horrendous accusations without any facts, decency calls for their silence in light of the grand jury’s decision.”

Mr. Gaymon’s widow, Melanie Gaymon, declined to comment.