Cop rejects charges of brutality

A University Police officer claimed accounts of the bloody October 30 incident are "greatly exaggerated." In the latest development in an ongoing controversy, a University Police officer disputed allegations that unprovoked officers beat a College freshman unconscious after a string of bloody assaults two weeks ago that sent the student, four University Police officers and the alleged assailant to the hospital. College freshman Bill Sofield was arrested in the Phi Gamma Delta house October 30 after police officers allegedly kicked and punched him while he remained passive, according to statements from several FIJI brothers. But a University Police officer who was inside the house called the FIJI brothers' accounts "greatly exaggerated" and said Sofield pushed the Philadelphia Police officer who was one of the first to try to arrest him for disorderly conduct. The officers then "took [Sofield] to the ground" to handcuff him, but did not assault him in the process, added the officer, who requested anonymity. FIJI brothers who watched the incident unfold have said they would be willing to testify that the officers assaulted Sofield in any future civil lawsuits brought by his family. One brother wrote in a statement submitted to the University and the Sofields that three officers "pushed Bill over (he was doubled over) on a table in the foyer? [and] began to punch and elbow Bill in the back and side rib area." The University Police officer who was inside the house stressed that officers did not punch Sofield while bringing him to the ground and never kicked him. But the officer admitted that he could not see if other officers were punching or striking the freshman after he was on the floor. "That's all under investigation," the officer said. He also maintained that allegations of a University Police officer coming close to hitting Sofield with a nightstick before being stopped by another officer are untrue. But a police officer did raise his nightstick to a position near the chin of a FIJI brother trying to prevent officers from entering the house, the officer said. That officer "didn't threaten the student," however, and instead put down his nightstick when another police officer suggested they move on, the officer added. Sofield -- a member of the lacrosse team -- is still recovering from the injuries he received during the incident, according to numerous sources. He is "still suffering from post-concussion syndrome one week after his beating," Penn men's lacrosse coach Marc Van Arsdale said in a written statement. Sofield has headaches, dizziness, slow response, difficulty concentrating, a sore neck, a black eye and bruises on his face, ribs, back, wrist and elbows, according to Van Arsdale. And Van Arsdale said he believes the charges that police beat Sofield. "I know them to be credible," he wrote. The incident inside the FIJI house occurred after police arrested Sofield's 28-year-old brother, Richard, for disorderly conduct and Richard Sofield's friend, 26-year-old Harvard University alumnus and former college football player Warnell "Yode" Owens, for allegedly assaulting four Penn police officers between the rear of the FIJI house and the intersection of 36th and Walnut streets. University Police officials said officers originally approached Owens and the Sofield brothers because they appeared drunk and were being rowdy in front of the FIJI house. After Richard Sofield was arrested, Owens and Bill Sofield fled inside the FIJI house. Owens fled through the house's rear door -- at which time police say he punched the first two officers who confronted him and reached for an officer's gun. The University Police officer who requested anonymity stressed that if the three men had just responded to officers' questions and followed their instructions, "everybody could have gone home."

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