Cellphone video published Wednesday by The New York Times appears to show a New York police officer taking more than $1,000 from a Brooklyn man and then pepper-spraying him.
The video has prompted an investigation by the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office into the officer’s conduct, according to the Times.
The video, shot on Sept. 16, showed the officer pushing Lamard Joye, who was out celebrating his 35th birthday, against a chain-link fence and patting him down, the Times reported. The officer could then be seen reaching into Joye’s pocket and removing what the Times said appeared to be a stack of bills.
After Joye told the officer to give him his money back, the video reportedly showed the officer spraying something at him.
According to the Times, spectators of the incident protested the alleged theft and were subsequently pepper-sprayed by the officer.
As of Thursday, the officer’s identity was not released, but the Times obtained a statement about the incident released by the NYPD.
“The incident was precipitated by a call of a man with a gun. When officers arrived at the scene, they encountered numerous people at the location. As a result of the allegations, the matter is under investigation.”
Joye’s lawyer, Robert Marinelli, told the Times he had submitted pay and bank records to the Brooklyn district attorney in an effort to show that his client had withdrawn a couple of thousand dollars with the intention of celebrating his birthday.
“I believe that this officer made an assumption that any money Mr. Joye possessed was obtained illegally and therefore he would not report the theft,” Marinelli told the Times. “This assumption was wrong. Mr. Joye is a hardworking taxpayer. An incident like this would never occur in a more affluent section of the city.”
Below is the cellphone video, courtesy of The New York Times:
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
All Cops need body CAMERAS. For their protection, but mostly for ours.
I’m glad that people took video of this police crime. If there was no video this case would not be under investigation.
And these are the ‘sheriffs’ that the GOP says should have near complete control to enforce the law as they see fit, without any interference from ‘activist judges’.
Is it any wonder why cops want to confiscate cameras and fight the right to record them? Or that they fight having body cameras, and then fight releasing the video? There is a far too large of a % of cops that are worse than the criminals they are supposedly out there for…and something needs to be done about it.