It was another instance of “saved by the video,” as Brooklyn resident John Hockenjos didn’t stand a chance otherwise.  He was accused of trying to run down NYPD Officer Diego Palacios, who heroically jumped out of the way. 

Hockenjos was arrested and spent three days in jail before he made bail.  When he got out, he located a video of the incident which conclusively proved that Palacios fabricated the story. The video got plenty of play, with cheers from the crowd as Hockenjos’ case was dismissed and Palacios was indicted.  Hooray.

For most, that was where interest waned.  After all, the innocent guy was exonerated and the bad cop would face the music. As reported in Sheepshead Bites, the song didn’t play very long.

“This individual spends four days in prison, with no probation, and he gets out of jail today or tomorrow and he’s a free man to do whatever he wants,” Hockenjos told Sheepshead Bites. “And I have to be in pure fear that there could be retribution. I should not be in this position; there should at least be probation.”

It appears, though the article neglects to clarify, that Palacios got time served, which worked out to four days.  Hockenjos was not pleased, either by the sentence or the fact that no one from the Brooklyn DA’s office bothered to ask him what he thought of the deal.

Even more galling, Hockenjos said, is that the assistant District Attorney on the case, Elizabeth Moehle, abandoned all the usual courtesies for the victim in prosecuting the case. Hockenjos said he wasn’t told about Thursday’s hearing until after the fact, and the District Attorney’s office never ran the plea deal by him.

“I started crying right away,” Hockenjos said of hearing news of the deal last week. “I’m afraid now. What’s going to happen to me?”

A spokesperson for Joe Hynes, who hasn’t been shown much love around Brooklyn lately, says that can’t be:

Though not required by law, the District Attorney’s office said that as a matter of policy, their office seeks the victim’s approval for all plea deals.

A spokesperson for District Attorney Charles Hynes told Sheepshead Bites that Hockenjos did give the thumbs up to the deal.

“We never do a plea unless the victim agrees to it. So that actually happened,” said Hynes spokesperson Sandy Silverstein.

Interesting path taken to reach that conclusion. If this is our policy, it therefore must have happened.  If the victim says no one every mentioned it, the victim must be wrong, since this is our policy. In Brooklyn, you can’t argue with a checklist.

Too often, we spend a lot of time and energy on the pivotal moment when the cop gets caught dirty, when the video tape proves that he lied.  The old “why would he lie” argument doesn’t hunt when there is a video, even though the legal system perpetuates its resistance to challenging a cop’s word as long as there is no video to prove otherwise.  We applaud the evidence. We applaud the reversal of fortune.  We applaud, and then move on.

John Hockenjos, unfortunately, won’t find it as easy to move on.

Hockenjos and his wife, Irena, say they live in fear that Palacios and his former colleagues at the 61st Precinct will seek retribution. Since the initial arrest, they’ve been afraid to call officers to report suspicious activity, or to protect them in an ongoing property dispute with a neighbor, who they claim has physically attacked them in the past.

“Now police officers can just shoot us to death and they won’t even face jail time, they’ll just resign from the police department,” Irena said. “This is very scary. I’m afraid to stay in the house; I’m afraid to step out.”

Retribution? By a disgraced ex-cop and his buddies on the force?  But that would be petty and unprofessional, a direct conflict with their duty to protect and serve. Oh wait, the cop lied in the first place. There was no honor to be found in the 61. Never mind.

Cries of lengthy prison sentences for lying cops, huge awards on subsequent lawsuits against the city, warm the cockles of onlookers’ hearts after the initial revelation that there is proof that another cop lied.  A year, maybe a few, later, the results rarely meet such rosy expectations. 

While sentencing in most criminal cases, sometimes at monumental length under the rubric of deterrent, sending a message, is a fiction that justifies decades in prison when no one knows that it happens, it’s different with cops. Unlike the rest of us who move on to the next story of abuse, lies and outrage, the police pay close attention to what happens with their own. Indeed, it’s obsessive, to see if their good buddies in the district attorney’s office or on the bench has shown their former brother the respect he deserves. 

This is where deterrence happens. And it’s also where payback happens, as a prosecutor who comes down hard on a lying cop knows that he will make no friends in the precinct.  It’s one thing to prosecute a cop who harms children, but a cop who lies? That could be anyone. The police know it. The prosecutor knows it. The judge knows it.

In the scheme of worrying about the victim’s feelings and fears, as opposed to the working relationship between the two wings of law enforcement, coming down hard on a lying cop carries problematic ramifications for the future. Hockenjos will go away. The police and prosecution still have to deal with each other every day.  Which relationship matters more?

So John and Irene Hockenjos will continue to live in Brooklyn, in the 61 Precinct, hoping that they never need to call 911 or have a run in with a cop that isn’t videotaped. If something happens, and it very well could, the chances of getting a time served sentence are slim.  At least Diego Palacios is off the force for having lied and copped the plea, which precludes the NYPD for giving him that medal for his heroic leap to safety.

H/T FritzMuffKnuckle