Death of Michael Stewart

In 1987, the 11 officers and the MTA were charged with a $40-million civil suit filed by the Stewart family which prompted hundreds of off-duty transit police officers to march along Madison Avenue in front of the MTA's headquarters carrying signs reading “End the witch hunt” and “When are we finally innocent?” In August 1990, Stewart's parents and his siblings John and Lisha Cole Stewart settled the civil suit out of court for $1.7 million. As of 1990, the police and city officials stated they were not to blame for the death of Michael Stewart.

In March 1987, the MTA determined that only one officer, John Kostick, was subject to suspension based on departmental charges of perjury. The MTA Board approved additional training for transit officers in the handling of emotionally disturbed people and changed its policies on how the department's internal affairs unit becomes involved with cases of possible misconduct.

William McKechnie, of the Transit Patrolman's Benevolent Association, denied the officers' role in the death stating, “If someone dies of a heart attack, we are not doctors”. The New York Civil Liberties Union believed the second set of indictments signaled a new direction in how prosecutors treat police abuse cases. Richard Emery, a lawyer for the New York Civil Liberties Union, stated, “The theory underlining this case is perhaps the most important development in stemming the tide of police abuse. It makes police officers strictly responsible for their prisoners. It holds them accountable.” On November 24, 1985, the six officers were acquitted by an all-white jury.

In February 1984, a second grand jury introduced the case before Justice George F. Roberts which indicted three officers, John Kostick, Anthony Piscola and Henry Boerner, with criminally negligent homicide, assault and perjury. Three other officers, Sgt. Henry Hassler, Sgt. James Barry and Susan Techky, who denied that they saw officers kick Stewart, were charged with perjury. In June 1985, jury selection began in State Supreme Court in Manhattan for the trial.

In 1984, Franck Lazare Goldberg directed a short documentary titled Who Killed Michael Stewart? about the killing.

Word of the arrest came out on September 15, 1983, as the Committee Against Racially Motivated Police Violence was holding a news conference to publicize a United States Congress hearing into complaints of police abuse. Stewart had been arrested earlier that day. He died at age 25, on September 28, after 13 days in a coma. The cause of death was listed as cardiac arrest.

On September 15, 1983, aspiring artist and model Michael Stewart left the Pyramid Club in Manhattan's Lower East Side. He was arrested at 2:50 a.m. for spraying graffiti at the First Avenue station on the L train's Brooklyn-bound platform. Transit Police Officer John Kostick found Stewart scrawling “RQS” on the wall and had him arrested. Stewart allegedly said, "Hey, man, you got me." Kostick cuffed Stewart and walked him to the turnstile to be identified. As Stewart was still living with his parents, he asked the police not to call his home to wake them up. Officer Kostick claimed Stewart was initially cordial, but suddenly ran off and had to be restrained while waiting for the arrest transport van. “At the top [of the stairs], Stewart fell face-forward on the ground,” said Kostick. The officer held Stewart to the ground until the van arrived, where several officers put him inside. Stewart was taken to the District 4 Transit Police station at 14th Street–Union Square, two stops away.

While being taken to the station, Kostick said, Stewart became “very violent” in the van. Stewart struggled with the officers and ran to the street. He was beaten unconscious. He was hogtied, bound at the ankles and tethered hands-to-feet by an elastic strap. During the struggle, Stewart's wails could be heard by 27 Parsons School of Design students from their dorm windows. A Parsons student, Rebecca Reiss, heard Stewart say "Oh my God, someone help me", and "What did I do? What did I do?" Rob Zombie, also a Parsons student at the time, recounted the incident in 2019 during an appearance on the September 16 episode of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast (#1353). He stated that he and the other witnesses that night were subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury prior to the trial. Stewart was booked at the Union Square District 4 transit police headquarters for resisting arrest and unlawful possession of marijuana. The transit police supervisors deemed Stewart emotionally disturbed. Stewart was placed back into the van and transported to Bellevue Hospital to undergo psychiatric observation. Stewart arrived at Bellevue at 3:22 a.m. He was handcuffed, his legs were bound, and he was comatose with a blood alcohol content of 0.22, more than double the 0.10 threshold needed to arrest someone for drunk driving. Stewart was dating Suzanne Mallouk at the time, and she went with his family to see him at the hospital. According to Mallouk's account, Stewart had bruises and cuts on his body. She said the doctors confirmed he was brain dead and had hemorrhaged in a way that suggested he had either been choked or strangled. Stewart died on September 28, 1983, thirteen days after his arrest.

A grand jury investigation was initiated in October 1983 to determine what happened to Stewart in the 32 minutes between being arrested and his delivery to the hospital. On October 19, about twenty black community leaders, including City Councilwoman Mary Pinkett, protested outside the Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau’s office at the Criminal Court Building. Morgenthau refused to see the group, stating that it would be inappropriate to comment before the case went to the grand jury in November 1983. The medical examiner’s final report, issued on November 2, differed from his preliminary report. Gross declined to state explicitly what caused the death, but reported that Stewart died of “physical injury to the spinal cord in the upper neck” and concluded that there were “a number of possibilities as to how an injury of this type can occur”.

Michael Jerome Stewart (May 9, 1958, Brooklyn, New York – September 28, 1983, Manhattan, New York) was an African-American man who received recognition after his death following an arrest by New York City Transit Police for writing graffiti in soft-tip marker or using an aerosol can on a New York City Subway wall at the First Avenue station. His treatment while in police custody and the ensuing trials of the arresting officers (all of whom were acquitted) sparked debate concerning police brutality and the responsibilities of arresting officials in handling suspects. This was a widely publicized episode in New York City's history of police brutality cases.