In a
complaint filed in United States District Court in Boston against seven
Somerville police officers, Gerard Contaldi, now 17, of Somerville,
alleges that he suffered bruising, a bloody nose and a black eye
swollen shut after Officer Marcos Freitas attacked him on Medford
Street for kicking the bin near his Nissan Z sports car.

Freitas
was out of uniform and smoking a cigarette on his parents porch on
Medford Street before the incident. He had just downed three to four
alcoholic drinks at a bar and stopped at his parents house to sober up,
the complaint alleges.

When Contaldi kicked the recycling bin
near the sports car, Freitas allegedly slapped the boy and yelled,
"Don't you know that is city property, you idiot!" A friend of
Contaldi's then pushed Freitas to the ground and the group of boys ran
down Medford Street, the complaint says.

Freitas, and six police
officers responding to a call for an attack on an officer, tracked the
boys down in the backyard of 33 Dartmouth St. and, according to to
Contaldi's lawyer, handed out some "curbside punishment" on the kids.

Officer
Alan Monaco allegedly pushed Contaldi's face into the gravel and yelled
at him, "Don't you realize you hit a cop?" Freitas then struck
Contaldi, who was in handcuffs, in the face with a flashlight or a
nightstick, the complaint alleges.

Contaldi and three other
juvenile boys were arrested and charged with assault and battery on a
police officer. Contaldi was found not guilty of the charges at his
trial. According to his lawsuit, the seven police officers gave
conflicting accounts of the incident when they testified.

"Instead
of following our system of justice it appears these Somerville police
officers followed the rules of street justice," said Contaldi's
attorney, Howard Friedman. "They all worked together to give Mr.
Freitas a chance to assault a prisoner and that is totally wrong."

The
lawsuit alleges that police officers Robert Kelleher, Kevin
Shackelford, Bruce Campbell, Clifford Mansir and James Hodgdon were at
the scene of the incident and permitted the beating.

Deputy
Chief Paul Upton directed questions to the city's law office. City
spokesman Tom Champion did not return repeated calls for comment.

The complaint asks for punitive damages to be awarded to Contaldi, but does not specify an amount.