On December 9, three Washington Heights mothers accused NYPD officers of police brutality toward their three teenage sons.

Community leader Raybblin Vargas explained that on November 24, around one in the morning, the three adolescents – Ryan Núñez and Justin Cabrera, both 16, and Francis Martínez, 17 – met at the McDonald's on 181 Street and Broadway, after leaving a party sponsored by Holy Rood Church, which their parents had given them permission to attend.

Vargas said that someone called 911 for an unknown reason, and that officers from the Manhattan 34th Precinct sprayed six youths with pepper gas and arrested them, among them Núñez and Cabrera. Later they arrested Joshua Guzmán, 17, when he went to report the incident in the restaurant to the same precinct, on charges of invasion of property and disorderly conduct.

“Francis Martínez succeeded in escaping, running from the police in a zigzag because he thought they were going to shoot at him,” Vargas revealed.

Rebecca Núñez, Ryan's mother, said that as the three youngsters left the restaurant, the officers told them to move west, but the boys told them they needed to go east because that's where their homes were.

“When they turned, one of the cops grabbed Justin by the neck, and when my son Ryan asked why they were choking him, they gave him a blow on the head that knocked him out,” said this mother.

The mothers asked for an independent investigation of the facts, and that the charges against their sons be dropped. They also demanded that the authorities release and show a surveillance tape shot in the restaurant, “because we want to know who is telling the truth.”

Rebecca Núñez, who showed a photograph of her son handcuffed to the rails of a hospital bed, with a black eye and an orthopedic neck brace, said that as a result of the blows he had received, her son had spent three days in the intensive care unit at Harlem Hospital.

The Justice Committee, an anti-police brutality organization, stated that on the day of the incident, “the police violated the young men's constitutional rights to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, their human rights and their dignity.”

Among those protesting police brutality in front of McDonald's on December 9 were the community leader Vargas, Jessica Sanclemente of The Justice Committee, and Altagracia Mayí, whose son died in 1991 after a savage beating by a gang of young men.

Cabrera and Núñez are to appear in court on February 6 and 7, respectively. The parents said their sons will plead innocent of the charges and go to trial.

The police stated that on the night of the incident officers responded to a 911 call reporting a fight and shots fired in the vicinity of 181st Street and Broadway. The police explained that the officers first attempted to arrest four men, one of them armed with a knife. According to the official statement, two of the men fled into the nearby restaurant and when the officers arrived there, they observed a group being disorderly and called for reinforcements.

A policewoman said that two groups of men exited the restaurant and began to fight. When they did not respond to a repeated order to stop, the officers separated the group to restore order.

The officer added that two of the men from the group were arrested, including one who had serious injuries to one eye and who was treated for a bruised eye and lacerations that did not require stitches.

The officer stated that on the night of the incident, nine persons were arrested in the same area, three of whom were issued fines for disorderly conduct, adding that Núñez was charged with initiating a disturbance, illegal assembly, disorderly conduct and, among other charges, resisting arrest.

Another man was arrested and charged with criminal possession of a weapon.