SALEM — Nearly three years after he was arrested while protesting the unveiling of a statue honoring the television show "Bewitched," Richard Sorell says he still wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, "shaking like a leaf."
The reason, he said in court yesterday, is "brutal" treatment at the hands of two veteran Salem police offers who took him into custody during the event.
Now he wants a jury to make them pay: He's seeking $1 million in a civil rights lawsuit that accuses them of violating his civil rights by arresting him without justification and then treating him roughly.
The Police Department sees it differently. The officers acted appropriately at all times, their lawyer argued yesterday during opening statements in the trial of Sorell's lawsuit in U.S. District Court.
"These were not overzealous police officers," Regina Ryan said of her clients, retired Capt. Robert Callahan and Sgt. Mark Riley. "These were model police officers who were more than patient and more than kind."
It all started when the cable television network TV Land offered to put up a statue of actress Elizabeth Montgomery (whom Sorell yesterday dismissed as a "B-movie actress"). She was the star of the sitcom "Bewitched," which ran from 1964 to 1972, about a witch married to a mortal and living in the suburbs.
Several episodes of the show were filmed in Salem, but the show was not set here — as was the case when the network erected statues of actor Bob Newhart in Chicago and Mary Tyler Moore in Minneapolis, the fictional "locations" of their hit shows.
A number of Salem residents and Sorell, who lives in Peabody, objected to the placement of the statue in Lappin Park, downtown and directly across from where 19 accused witches were condemned to die.
After some debate, the city accepted the statue.
On the morning of June 15, 2005, a large crowd of fans and media gathered downtown for the unveiling.
Elizabeth Who?
Sorell testified yesterday that he and a group of eight to 10 others had talked the day before and decided to protest.
"We marched down — walked, I mean we walked down — to the site," Sorell said under questioning by his lawyer, Michael Tumposky. Sorell, who was 65 at the time, lugged a poster board sign on an 11-foot stick that read "Elizabeth Who? Is she from Salem?"
But when he got to the spot, at the corner of Essex and Washington streets, where the statue would be unveiled, Callahan directed him and the others across the street, to the pedestrian mall.
"He put his arm out and said we had to be back and on the other side of the street," Sorell told jurors. He believed that Callahan simply wanted to hide the opponents from the view of cameras.
He said Callahan also told him to put down the sign because it was blocking the view of others.
During cross-examination by Ryan, he admitted disobeying the officer, snapping, "I don't see any people back there that are 11 feet tall."
Instead, he turned it sideways.
Then he walked across Washington Street and started making his way through the crowd.
"I was saying, 'Excuse me, pardon me, excuse me,'" he told jurors.
Sorell got about three rows from the front when he felt a hand on his shoulder and then his arm being pulled back. Riley was arresting him on a disorderly conduct charge.
"It was extremely painful," Sorell told the jurors. "I have osteoporosis and arthritis. ... It was really brutal."
Moving to the front
Police say that Sorell had elbowed people out of the way — and nearly knocked over 72-year-old Mary L'Heureux of Salem, who was there with her daughter.
At his trial in 2005 on the disorderly conduct charge, Sorell apologized to the woman; and, after hearing the apology, the judge dismissed the charge.
But Sorell insisted yesterday he'd never knocked anyone over. And he testified yesterday that he does not recall apologizing to the woman.
"Could you have knocked into the woman?" Ryan asked.
"No," Sorell said.
Back over at the pedestrian mall, Sorell said, Callahan told Riley, "I'll take this one." They eventually put him in a police wagon — knocking him to his knees, he testified. And when a patrolman asked what the charge was, Callahan told him, "I'll take care of that when we get back to the station."
In his air-conditioned cell, Sorell said, he was cold and panicky.
"I was freezing, and I felt claustrophobic," he testified.
Then, about two or three minutes later, "I fainted." He said he later realized he had suffered a panic attack. He said his body was convulsing as he lay on a stretcher waiting to be taken to the hospital, though that's not reflected in medical records.
"I was in shock," Sorell said. "I couldn't believe I'd be arrested for a sign that didn't say much and that they were treating me with such force."
Ahead of others?
Ryan questioned him about his decision to move forward with the sign.
"You were going to wiggle your way through the people who had been standing there all morning?"
Sorell said no.
She referred to his deposition testimony.
"You're jimmying your way through because you want to be in front?"
"No," Sorell answered.
"What were you doing?" Ryan asked.
"I was going to the front of the crowd," Sorell answered.
Sorell is expected to be back on the stand this morning, when testimony resumes in the trial.
While the original witness list was a who's who of the city's leadership, past and present — including both Mayor Kim Driscoll and former Mayor Stanley Usovicz, police Chief Robert St. Pierre, and other top police brass — it has been pared down a bit.
In addition to Sorell, jurors will hear from Callahan and Riley, Sorell's fellow protesters John Carr and Meg Twohey, and L'Heureux, the woman who says she nearly fell because of Sorell.
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