Two teenagers charged yesterday they were beaten when cops discovered them hiding in a maintenance garage in Brownsville - and severely injured as officers sicced a police dog on them.
At a press conference at their lawyers' offices, William Bryant and Emmanuel Blake charged they were already handcuffed and under arrest for burglary when a German shepherd mauled them at 12:20 a.m. on Aug. 6 in a garage at the Marcus Garvey Houses.
"I thought the dog was going to kill me," said Blake, 19, as he sat next to his mother in the office of his lawyer, Andrew Stoll, in downtown Brooklyn.
Police Department officials yesterday said they responded to a call to a burglary in progress that night and, with a canine unit, found the teens hiding in an air shaft. They were charged with burglary and trespassing.
Bryant, who has an open wound on his right leg, and Blake said they were not burglarizing the garage but hanging out in a place where kids in the city Housing Authority complex regularly seek refuge.
Police brass said that because a lawsuit was being threatened, they could not comment further on the case.
On Monday, a Brooklyn grand jury declined to indict Bryant and Blake on the felony burglary charge, though they were charged with misdemeanor trespassing, prosecutors said.
"There was no resisting arrest here, there was no fight with the police officers," Stoll said. "And, at the time our clients were attacked by this dog, they were in the complete control of the police officers and already restrained."
Stoll said the cops allowed the dog to maul Bryant until he gave up his buddy, and then sicced the dog on Blake for "good measure."
The attorney said the teens are filing a $10 million federal civil rights lawsuit, and that their notice of claim - indicating their intention to sue the city - would be given to the controller's office by 5 p.m. yesterday.
Stoll also charged that the NYPD and District Attorney Charles Hynes' office should have investigated the allegations of police brutality.
Hynes' office called on the lawyer to work with them.
"We have approached the lawyer to ask his cooperation in waiving the speedy trial rules so we can investigate, and he has not responded to that in more than a week," a spokesman said.
While Stoll charged that prosecutors granted immunity to the cops when they allowed them to testify in the grand jury, law enforcement sources said the allegations of brutality were not made until after the case was presented to the panel.
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