On March 5 Newark Superior Court Judge Paul Vichness threw out the indictments against the four cops who had been charged in April 2003 with reckless manslaughter in the death of the garment worker.

Villanueva, who was born in the Dominican Republic, was attacked by cops April 16, 2002, after suffering an epileptic seizure while working at the Quick Cut factory in Bloomfield. According to co-workers and the factory owner, the four cops, insisting that Villanueva was on drugs, threw him face down to the floor, handcuffed him, and jammed their knees into his head, neck and back.

The cops kept Villanueva in handcuffs as they put him in the ambulance. Within half an hour of the incident, he was pronounced dead at Newark’s nearby Columbus Hospital. The regional medical examiner’s office reported bruising on his neck and shoulder and determined that mechanical asphyxia—physical pressure stopping breathing—was the cause of death. The death was termed a homicide.

Judge Vichness dismissed the indictments on the grounds that no one had been able to say which cop had his knee on Villanueva’s neck. “It would be improper for me to require them to stand trial when there is no evidence of what they did,” he said.

“It is highly unusual that a judge would dismiss an indictment, that a judge would usurp 26 people [the grand jury] who found probable cause for an indictment,” said Susan Karten, an attorney representing Villanueva’s family.

Villanueva, 35, was known by many in his New York neighborhood of Washington Heights as a musician and volunteer teacher of Dominican folk dancing. A number of protests have been organized since his death. Like the most recent protest, many have involved families of other victims of police brutality, including Iris Baez, whose son Anthony was murdered by New York City cops in the mid-1990s.  
 
 
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