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Updated April 10, 2006, 6:59 p.m. ET

Police witness describes how fellow officers beat an unarmed man
Nicole Martinez Belmore
Officer Nicole Martinez Belmore demonstrates for jurors the police violence she witnessed against Frank Jude (pictured with prosecutor Jon Reddin).

A police witness in the trial of three former Milwaukee officers broke into tears Thursday while testifying about the treatment she received from colleagues after she implicated the white defendants in the alleged beating of a biracial man.

"I was repeatedly called a rat. I had doors slammed in my face," Officer Nicole Martinez Belmore told jurors as she wiped away tears. "I lost a lot of friends; people that I was very close to for 12 years no longer spoke to me." (VIDEO)

Belmore testified in Milwaukee District Court Thursday that the apparent retribution began shortly after she reported seeing off-duty officers Jon Bartlett, Daniel Masarik and Andrew Spengler on top of alleged victim Frank Jude, when she responded to a theft call outside Spengler's home at about 3 a.m. on Oct. 24, 2004.

Other off-duty officers who attended a party at Spengler's home that evening have testified that soon after Jude arrived, he was accused of stealing Spengler's badge from his bedroom.


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While the other officers have testified that they saw the defendants attempt to detain the combative suspect while they waited for uniformed officers to arrive, nearly all of them have stopped short of claiming they witnessed the brutal beating Jude claims he was subjected to.

Even Belmore testified that while en route to the scene, located in a residential middle-class area of Milwaukee, she received another call changing the status of the incident to a battery report.

Belmore testified Thursday that after Jude was handcuffed, she saw Bartlett kick the 26-year-old male stripper in the head, emitting cracking noises from his head, as he lay in the street. She also said she saw the officer hold a knife to Jude's neck and threaten to kill him if he did not give up the badge.

Belmore claimed Masarik told her, "I'm sorry you have to see this," before proceeding to raise Jude's leg and kick him twice in the groin, causing him to writhe in pain.

The stoic witness turned emotional when she testified how, after the defendants' booking photos were released, someone at the police department stuck copies of them with hearts drawn on them all over her locker.

She also recalled that once while patrolling alone, she called for police help, but no one came.

"I was the senior-most officer on the shift, and I was just treated horrible," she said between sobs.

As one of few police witnesses to actually place the defendants near Jude while he was allegedly beaten, defense lawyers tried to cast doubt on the accuracy of her identifications.

Belmore admitted that when she arrived at the scene, Spengler was the only person she recognized as an off-duty police officer, and that she did not see him physically attack the bruised and bloodied victim.

As for Bartlett, she said it only occurred to her that she recognized him from a police training course hours later, when she was in the hospital with Jude.

After failing to identify Masarik in a photo array less than two weeks after the incident, she testified she finally identified him as the man at Jude's feet when she saw him on television, more than four months later.

The cadre of defense lawyers also attempted to imply that Belmore, along with other uniformed officers who were called to the scene, bungled the investigation by failing to control the scene and follow procedure.

Belmore, a former EMT, admitted she broke procedure when she transported Jude to the hospital in a paddy wagon rather than calling for an ambulance.

"I turned into EMT mode and I wanted to get him out of there," Belmore said of the "chaotic" scene she encountered.

Belmore was one of nine officers to receive some sort of reprimand stemming from the incident, including a failure to identify out those responsible.

Belmore was ultimately suspended for not calling an ambulance and for breaking a rule requiring her to monitor a violent suspect by accompanying him in the wagon, though the jury was not told that.

Testimony resumes Thursday afternoon. The trial is being streamed live on the Web at Court TV Extra.

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