NEW YORK - The Mount Kisco police officer facing criminal charges in
the death of a homeless Guatemalan immigrant was named in a police
brutality case involving two 14-year-olds during an incident at a
Bronx school in 2005.

New York City paid the teenagers $40,000 to settle the federal lawsuit
filed last year against George Bubaris and 10 other NYPD officers and
supervisors, according to court records.

The lawsuit accused police from the 49th Precinct in the Bronx of
kicking 14-year-old Lance Velez, then throwing him into a police van
before turning pepper spray on him, as the cops broke up a fight
between middle school girls outside F.D. Whalen Junior High School in
the Morris Park neighborhood on April 4, 2005. Another 14-year-old,
Fabian Parker, charged that he was roughed up and pepper-sprayed after
complaining about police tactics. No charges were filed against the
youths, their lawyer said.

The lawsuit accused some cops of participating in the alleged attack
and others of doing nothing to stop it. But it does not say what role
each officer, including Bubaris, was accused of playing.