What were they smoking?
A pair of blundering cops mistook a downtown man's cigarette break for a suicide attempt, a lawsuit claims.
Cops Take ‘Suicidal’ Window Ledge Smoker to Psych Ward
What were they smoking?
A pair of blundering cops mistook a downtown man’s cigarette break for a suicide attempt, a lawsuit claims.
A lawyer enjoying a puff on the sill of his second-floor apartment window says he was wrestled to the floor by cops who hauled him off to the loony bin.
Mark Moody said he was taking his usual nicotine break on the window ledge of his Peck Slip home on a hot August day with a cigarette in one hand and a cellphone in the other, a scant 12 feet off the ground.
He was shocked when a police car rolled up and two cops jumped out.
“Are you about to commit suicide?” one cop asked.
“If I was going to commit suicide, this would be a pretty dumb place to do it,” the 40-year-old trial lawyer scoffed. “If I jumped from here, I’d just sprain my ankle.”
But the officers, who never said what prompted their concern, insisted Moody come downstairs.
Moody refused, explaining he was sitting on the sill so he wouldn’t get smoke in the apartment. He even waved over a cabby he knew from the neighborhood, hoping the hack would confirm that the window is Moody’s regular smoking spot.
But three ambulances and four other patrol cars pulled up before the cabby could move.
“An army of people arrived,” Moody said.
Before he knew it, a beefy officer was inside his apartment, lifting him out of his own living-room window from behind, Moody said. The cop slammed him on the living-room floor while another kneeled on top of him and cuffed him, he claimed.
“I still don’t know how they broke in,” he said. “I never used to keep the chain on, but now I do.”
The attorney was thrown into an ambulance and taken to Beth Israel Medical Center.
The on-duty psychiatrist apologized before quickly discharging him, Moody said.
“I talked to him for three minutes, and he said, ‘Look, I’m really sorry. I apologize on behalf of the city,’ ” Moody recalled.
NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said, “Police responded to a 911 call of an emotionally disturbed person at the location. When police arrived, they observed the male sitting on the ledge talking erratically. Police Emergency Service officers were called, and the person was removed to the hospital for observation.”
Moody, who The Post found still takes his cigarette breaks sitting in his open window, sued the city and the police officers for $400,000 in damages on Dec. 8 in Manhattan federal court.
“I wasn’t doing anything,” he said. “Maybe it should be a crime to smoke a cigarette, but at the moment it’s not.”
auntie
if he’s pyschiatricaly unwell, why call him a lunatic, its not respectful. but everyone who needs help should get it and just be well.
tipshim
Either of two things. Either that man becomes the head of our community council. Or the cops came from our precint, where everything goes. Apparently everytime a cop talks to you, he has a right to know your name and where you live. He needs to know where to send you a birthday card. Now that’s Achdus. Why do you think that these cops wanna harass you. You people are racists. Next time invite them for Shabbos. You people should stop harassing the cops. Don’t smoke, drink, drive, walk, let alone breathe. Welcome to Chelm, a branch of Crown Heights. Where the going is good, and the good better be going.
Agree
The guy is right but he’s a nut!
Edward Greenberg
Maybe they considered him suicidal since he was smoking, which is usually accepted as a health risk :)
gtjdikd6e
why does someone smoke on his windowsill?
SMOKING IS SUICIDE
If you smoke, you are killing yourself, your family and anyone else around you.
Do the right thing and PLEASE QUIT!
to #1
no one ever said that he was psychiatric! dont put words into ppls mouths and say things that are not true to make ppl look bad
What these police are thinking??
Come on, it’s 12 feet high only. Where is the police’s brain??
to # 5
to keeep the smoke out of his house
DUH
mom in ch
I would freak out too if I saw someone with their feet out of the window.
MaDDinBklyn
Cops = Morons
Police fired a Taser at a naked Brooklyn man armed with only a fluorescent light tube yesterday, sending him falling to his death from a second-floor ledge after he went on a 40-minute rant.
Iman Morales’ mom begged cops not to hurt her son, telling them he’s sick – then watched in horror as he plunged from the top of the roll-down gate on which he’d been perched.
An Emergency Services officer, acting on the orders of his boss, fired at the 35-year-old man at around 2 p.m., as he waved the 8-foot fluorescent light tube, police sources said.
“His body froze up and he fell face-first,” said Sean Johnson, who witnessed the drama at 489 Tompkins Ave. in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Morales, who crashed 10 feet to the pavement, died a few hours later at Kings County Hospital.
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Asked if police followed the proper protocol for using a Taser, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said, “That’s being reviewed.”
A New York Police Department lieutenant was stripped of his gun and badge, and the officer who used the stun gun on the man was placed on administrative duty Thursday, officials said.
Amid his mostly unintelligible rant, Morales was heard yelling, “You’re going to kill me. I’m going to take everyone with me.”
He also screamed, “I’m going to die. You’re all going to die with me.”
Morales first emerged hanging out a third-floor window after a blowup with his mother at around 1 p.m., witnesses said.
Twenty minutes later, he climbed the fire escape to the fourth floor, where he tried to force his way into a neighbor’s apartment.
“He tried to come into my window and I ran out,” said 40-year-old Tonya Wright.
“He said, ‘Let me in.’ I told him, ‘I’m not letting you in.’ ”
Morales then headed to the second floor and screamed to the crowd, which included his frantic mom.
“She was saying, ‘No! No! Don’t hurt him. He is sick,’ ” Wright said.
With police shouting for him to get down, Morales made his way to a ledge above a the gate.
“Walk down now! Move down!” the police can be heard shouting to him on video.
He then picked up the light tube and waved it in the air before jabbing cops who had climbed out of the windows above.
“When he was poking the cop, people were laughing,” Johnson said.
He refused orders from the officers and continued his incoherent tirade.
Finally, one of the ESU cops on the street shot him with the Taser.
“He just fell face first,” said witness Sean Brown. “People were screaming and yelling. It was wrong.”
It was unclear what set off the episode, but, said Johnson, “once he started hitting the cop with that pole, that’s when it turned serious.”
Morales had one prior arrest, for a Manhattan petit larceny.
“This is very out of character,” said the building’s superintendent, Charlene Gayle, 31.
“Nice guy, clean cut, well kept, never irrational. Didn’t have irrational behavior.” (The Cop who tased the EDP killed himself)
It could have been worse.
It could have been worse……..he could have been standing in front of his house talking with some friends………..