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Tenant arrested after calling police for help in lockout
Sameh Tawfik will never get over what happened on the night of October 5, 2002.
He had gone to retrieve some belongings from a storage area he rented in his building at 254 Western Ave. Finding the door to the basement padlocked, he called the Cambridge police to ask for help.
Five or six cops arrived. Tawfik knew one of them—Sergeant Joseph Frawley.
His landlord, Zahour Haque, came out and spoke with the police, but Tawfik could not hear what they said. He did hear Frawley tell the others to arrest and charge him with breaking and entering and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon! Within minutes, Sameh Tawfik found himself knocked to the ground and losing consciousness.
Five months later, a jury easily saw that Mr. Tawfik had not threatened or assaulted anyone. But they decided he was guilty of “malicious destruction” of a five-dollar padlock. He denies this, and in fact the padlock did not appear to be damaged. But he now has a CORI record, which effectively bars him from employment in his profession, an unarmed security guard.
From May 2000 until a few months before his arrest, Tawfik worked as a guard for Eastern Security, a business operated for 25 years by Sergeant Joseph Frawley of the Cambridge Police Department. Tawfik had left Eastern on good terms, but Frawley decided to withhold vacation pay and dispute his unemployment claim. He was now angry that his former employee was pressing his claim. Mr. Tawfik recalls encountering Sgt. Frawley on the street and being told, “as long as you live or drive in Cambridge, you won’t be safe.”
It happened that on the night of October 5, 2002, Tawfik’s unemployment claim against Frawley was still pending. The sergeant should have left the scene immediately. But he didn’t. Instead, he ordered a false arrest and testified against Tawfik in court. Oddly enough, Frawley’s name appears as “Crowley” throughout the transcript of the case.
Lockout was retaliation
Sameh Tawfik, 45, came from Egypt in 1995 and became a U.S. citizen five years later. It was difficult to find housing that he could afford to rent.
In May, 2000 he rented space in the three-decker at 254-6 Western Ave from Zahour Haque, a Pakistani immigrant who lived on the first floor with his wife. For $2000 a year he got a windowless closet on the second floor with a mattress to sleep on, and storage space in the basement.
Tawfik says that up to twenty-five people shared the three-room apartment at various times. Numerous rodents and insects also took up residence. Someone kept shutting off the electricity.
After he called Inspectional Services, the landlord was not too happy with Tawfik, whom he then sued for everything that was broken in the apartment. On September 30, 2002, the landlord lost this case (actually, six cases) in small claims court. Five days later, the basement was padlocked and the tenant arrested.
Sameh Tawfik despairs of ever getting rid of his CORI record. It would be expensive, and the CORI itself keeps him from earning the necessary funds.
He filed a complaint with Cambridge’s police review board, which did nothing.
Meanwhile Frawley has retired from the Cambridge police force.