April 19, 2008 — The NYPD has launched an internal probe after cops broke down the door of a Hasidic family’s home in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood as they hunted for a suspect in a racially charged assault on the black son of a cop.
The Internal Affairs Bureau and the Civilian Complaint Review Board are investigating why officers burst into the Eastern Parkway apartment, searched the home and arrested the suspected attacker’s 20-year-old brother, Aron Ezagui, without a warrant.
The raid Tuesday night came several hours after two young Hasidic men attacked Andrew Charles, 21, sources said.
Sources said Charles was walking near the corner of President Street and Albany Avenue when a Jewish man asked, “What are you looking at?”
Charles was sprayed in the face with mace. Then the attacker made a phone call and a car showed up. Three or four other men jumped out and one of them began beating Charles with a baton, a source said.
The source also said that the same car was found later without license plates.
Charles, the son of officer Moses Charles, sought treatment at a nearby hospital.
“He has a lot of bruises and pain in his back,” said family spokesperson W. Taharka Robinson.
Ezagui told The Post he had just come from a deli when he heard loud banging and people identifying themselves as police. Instead of opening the door, he turned on a camcorder.
“I don’t know what they’ll do to me,” said Ezagui, who was in the apartment with his mother, 9-year-old sister and possibly others.
In a Post reporter’s review of the tape, police shout, “One more time and it’s coming down.”
Seconds later, more than a dozen cops charged into the apartment carrying flashlights.
Once inside, police asked whether there was “a hostage.” The man replied, “Do you have a warrant?”
Ezagui was taken to the 71st Precinct and charged with obstructing governmental administration, but the Brooklyn DA’s Office declined to prosecute.
The Ezagui family expressed anger about what happened and filed a CCRB complaint. The family is also weighing the possibility of a lawsuit against the NYPD.
CCRB spokesman Andrew Case said: “We have the complaint, and we’re investigating it.”
A law-enforcement source said police were alerted to the possibility of a hostage situation by Ezagui’s aunt, who lives in a neighboring apartment – a circumstance that can preclude the need for a warrant.
CHLEAKS 
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