A Mercer County man and his mother have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit accusing a task force led by Trenton police of mistakenly raiding their home, arresting the son and fracturing his forearm by forcing him to wear tight handcuffs for hours before letting him go.
Quasean Goldstein, 34, and Jacqueline Duette, 65, claim court papers they awoke about 4 a.m. on Jan. 19, 2021, to police officers banging on their door and yelling.
Goldstein, who is Black, alleges he was racially profiled, targeted and falsely arrested.
Goldstein and Duette were “alarmed, frightened and confused,” according to the lawsuit filed Jan. 19 in U.S. District Court. When Goldstein opened the door “only in his underwear and without shoes,” police from three agencies entered the home unlawfully without a warrant or probable cause, the suit alleges.
The officers, members of a joint task force, grabbed Goldstein from the entrance threshold, dragged him 20 feet from the house and forced him to lie face-down nearly naked in freezing weather, the suit states.
The lawsuit names as defendants the city of Trenton, several officers from city’s police department, members of the U.S. Marshals Service, and troopers with the New Jersey State Police.
“Due to the ongoing civil litigation and internal affairs investigation, the department will not be able to provide a comment at this time,” said police Det. Lt. Nate Bolognini, spokesman for the Trenton Police Department.
Spokespersons for city administrators, State Police and the U.S. Marshals did not immediately respond Friday to requests for comment on the suit.
The suit states that Goldstein complained multiple times that his handcuffs were too tight as officers brought him back into the home, which they searched for 30 to 45 minutes.
The lawsuit says instead of loosening the handcuffs, officers ordered Goldstein to sit in a chair and gave him clothes and slippers to wear for transport to Trenton police headquarters.
In the home and during the ride, Goldstein repeatedly told officers that the handcuffs were causing severe pain and continued to complain after police brought him headquarters and placed him in a holding cell with the cuffs on, the suit says.
Throughout the morning, Goldstein told officers he had never committed a crime, didn’t know why they had entered his home and asked them repeatedly to loosen the handcuffs, the suit says.
Eventually, a police supervisor arrived to “verify the identity of the arrested individual,” but told arresting officers they had the wrong man and that Goldstein was innocent, the suit says.
Even though he had committed no crime, police placed Goldstein back into the cell still wearing the tight handcuffs. Trenton police later drove Goldstein to his home and took the handcuffs off once he was inside, the lawsuit says.
At that time, one of the officers “tried to explain that the arrest was the result of a mistake,” the suit says.
Police also tried to obtain information from Goldstein about other crimes, but “Goldstein was clueless and continued to explain he has a clean record,” the suit says. Before leaving, two police officers asked Goldstein for his phone, and they placed their contact information into the device, the suit says.
A doctor who examined Goldstein determined the handcuffs caused a painful broken bone near the wrist, according to the suit. Goldstein also suffered permanent nerve damage to his wrist near the thumb, the suit alleges.
“Trenton police officers have a long and documented history of aggressive police practices, including unnecessary deployment of use of force, false arrests, falsifying official police reports, cover-ups, racial profiling, and sham internal affairs investigations,” the suit states.
The suit claims Trenton police officers used force 204 times between 2012 and 2016, and the department averaged 5.6 use-of-force incidents per police officer during the same time frame.
The lawsuit says the city has failed to investigate Goldstein’s arrest or any of the officers who were involved in the raid and search of the man’s home.
The Trenton police spokesman said an internal affairs investigation is ongoing.
The suit accuses officers from all three agencies of negligence.
“The actions and inactions committed by task force conspirators deprived Goldstein of equal protection under the law and the right to be free from unlawful search and seizures,” the suit states.
Goldstein’s lawyers state in the complaint that they filed nearly a dozen records requests for police documents, body-worn camera video, 911 audio, and radio transmissions, but claim Trenton police has refused to provide them with most of the materials.
“Unable to locate any bodycam footage. Waiting on audio from 911 and radio,” police said in a July 2022, response to the OPRA request, according to the suit.
“Anything further you will have to reach out to the U.S. Marshals and state police. It was a joint task force,” the response said, according to the suit.
Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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