Police Commissioner Sewell fires officer accused of beating girlfriend
Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell has fired an officer who was accused of beating his girlfriend.
According to NYPD documents, he also claimed he’s untouchable.
“[I’m] a police officer,” Officer Jose Joseph told his partner after attacking her, according to her testimony. “Nothing’s going to happen.”
Joseph was arrested and charged with strangulation that day, Dec. 1, 2019. Although he was acquitted at his criminal trial, Sewell fired Joseph on July 20, according to a decision about the case recently posted online.
The girlfriend, identified by pseudonym Annette, during Joseph’s administrative trial at One Police Plaza three months earlier, testified that as they got ready to drive home from a Bronx bar at 7 a.m., the 15-year police veteran fell asleep behind the wheel before pulling out.
She hailed an Uber, she said, but he woke up and yelled at her for doing so and assaulted her.
He knocked the phone out of her hand, slapped her in the face and “choked me — it was both hands,” Annette testified.
Joseph, who was assigned to a Transit command in Harlem at the time, then put her in a headlock until she lost consciousness, she said.
When she woke up, Joseph had his arms wrapped around her upper body, Annette testified.
“Are you dead, motherf—-r?” he asked before calming down and driving her home.
That’s when he made his boast about being invulnerable thanks to his status as a cop, Annette said.
She called 911 when she got home and took pictures of her injuries, cuts on her chin and lip, scratches on her face and marks on her neck. She was later treated at New York Presbyterian Hospital.
Joseph, in his testimony, played down their relationship, calling her one of several girlfriends he had at the time. Also, he said Annette was mad because while at the bar, she accused him of spending more time with his friends and other women than with her.
Joseph had previously been placed on dismissal probation in 2015 for a year and docked 45 vacation days for not identifying himself at the scene of a fight and for giving “misleading statements” to investigators, documents show.