Posted on 01/27/2014 11:16:55 AM PST by deks
“We can have police efforts focused on pedestrian safety without violating the civil rights of our citizens,” said Wong’s lawyer, Sanford Rubenstein, who will file a notice of the lawsuit on Monday, naming the city, NYPD and unidentified officers as defendants.
Wong maintains the traffic signal was green when he stepped off the curb at the southeast corner of 96th St. and Broadway to cross, but it may have turned red by the time the octogenarian reached the other side, where an unidentified cop stopped him and demanded to see his identification.
Wong speaks only Cantonese and Spanish, but understood the meaning of the officer’s demand for “ID.”
When the cop began walking away with his card, Wong said he followed after him. “I was very puzzled and I was very scared,” he said. “I had no idea why I had been stopped. I used Cantonese and said give me back my ID.”
In response to Wong’s repeated requests for his card back, the cop whipped out handcuffs and spoke into his portable radio. “I got more scared,” Wong said.
Several officers raced over and grabbed Wong, pushing him against the wall of a building. Wong said he was pushed to the ground and struck his head, blacking out. When he regained consciousness, blood was streaming down his face and his hands were cuffed behind his back.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
Right about choosing Spanish as his second language
There. Fixed it for him. :^)
I personally don’t care if he doesn’t speak English - I hope that he wins, because the anti-jaywalking campaign is part of NYC’s long-standing “domesticate the populace” campaign. It started under Rudy Il Duce, and continued under Bloomingidiot, and (of course) the fascist DeBlasio wants no part in expanding individual freedom.
To my way of thinking, if you try to cross against the light in a place like NYC, you deserve to get run over. Oh, and the Orwellian cameras at every corner will provide evidence if the pedestrian or driver was right. What, NYC is so crime-free that it has nothing better to do with hundreds of officers other than watching where and when people walk?
I think it's infinitely WORSE for thugs in police uniforms to man-handle an 84-year-old man.
Not only is it worse on a moral level, it is worse on a financial level. Being here, even not speaking English, the guy presumably provided employment, a tax base, and good Chinese food, and all in a moral way. Being manhandled by uniformed bullies playing "cops and robbers" will cost taxpayers MILLIONS and benefit pretty much only attorneys. Immoral authority of cops produces an immoral outcome.
Priorities go with morality, and morality goes with limited government conservatism. The more you limit government authority, the more moral the outcome in how society moves forward.
I go through the posts on this thread... yeah, minorities and immigrants would be STUPID to vote for conservatives. No sarcasm here of any kind. You people just wait. You are sinking into minority status and spitting on minorities. That’s just not smart. Not very nice either. Is everyone here over 70? Come on. Cops beat the crab out of an old man and you guys are making “Wong” jokes, and dialect jokes. Don’t be a stereotype. Damn unfortunate.
No cops beat up this old grifter.
He started a shoving match with a cop writing him a ticket, and scraped his cheek when he fell to the ground.
Five cops restrained him, so that he could be subdued without further injury. Then they took him to saint Luke’s hospital.
Had they used a taser, you would have been all over them for that. Had the cop who was writing him a ticket duked it out with him solo, he would have been hurt and you would be outraged. Had the cop let him go, you would be whining about corrupt cops refusing to do their job when the person in question doesn’t (or pretends not to) speak english.
So we can count you among the so called enlightened who thinks this old con artist should get millions for initiating a fight with the cops?
Where do I go to get you to demand the courts shower me with money too?
I am sure I could shove a cop somewhere. I’ll even do something to get a ticket.
My grandfather came from Italy in 1906 with zero money, worked on the railroad, lived in USA for 40 years, saved his money, bought 2 restaurants, a bakery, a vegetable store, and a 100 room hotel. He couldn`t speak a word of English, but his wife could. He always carried a big pistol tucked into his belt. The cops never bothered him at all. In those days anyone could carry a pistol here, even teenagers until the mafia govt made the Sullivan Law...
From his humble beginnings in China, to immigrating to Cuba at age 19 to work on farms, to traveling with only the clothes on his back to New York City in 1966, where he slept on floors and worked in restaurants until he could operate his own eatery, Wong said he had never found himself on the wrong side of the law.
After this run-in with the NYPD, he'll have one more sea story to tell his grandchildren.
That's consistent with my experience with blue collar immigrants. Many have been here for decades but don't speak much beyond pidgin English. The hours are long and hard (60 hour weeks are common), the pay is low and raising families is time-consuming. Bottom line is they run out of time.
What strikes me as odd is that they’re not putting cops with radar guns on the street. It sounds like what they have is a speeding problem rather than a jaywalking problem. I slow down for jaywalkers on city streets all the time. If they want to reduce the number of pedestrian deaths, they need to start charging people who hit pedestrians instead of ticketing and roughing up elderly jaywalkers. Besides, going after motorists who misbehave is a good way of reducing congestion in Manhattan, where the mile-long trip from east to west can take an hour.
I tend to agree with you. I think its wrong for a bunch of burly cops to beat or abuse any 84 year old person whether they speak English or not. There is no respect in our society anymore for our elders. Its not like an 84 year old guy is going to overwhelm them or anything. Give me a break.
$5 million settlement? Uh no!
Thirty minutes of sensitiity training with Gunny Ermy for the cops? Yes! :-)
The money should from the cops who did the deed and those top cops who defended it
Where did you come up with the assertion that they did not do that also?
The officer writing Wong a ticket shouted for backup and witnesses said it appeared almost instantly (according to earlier articles.
Now, how do you suppose that was able to happen?
Don’t chat much, so I don’t always reply, but I wanted to thank you for adding the family story that is relevant to the thread.
Also, I didn’t know about the Sullivan Act. I am saddened by the gun grabbers’ successes in the Northeast U.S., but I respect the members here who are “behind enemy lines” and just get outvoted in their states.
At 80 cops per square mile, NYC is crawling with cops. The way it works is they typically hang out in the same areas instead of spreading out. I've been to plenty of run-down areas where the cop presence is nugatory. Weirdly enough, the highly-patrolled areas tend to be upscale areas like 96th St. That's why I thought stop-and-frisk was a wonderful thing - it provided poor areas with a police presence. Now that it's been ruled illegal, the cops appear to be hogging all the low-crime pedestrian areas again.
Luckily he wasn’t blind .... they would have shot his seeing eye dog!!!!
Spot-on.
The NYPD must have a line of people suing them.
Your grandfather & mine both must’ve been among that ‘wave’ of Italians. He couldn’t speak more than a few words of English either. The old guys always did their business via wives/kids, not really getting around to learning much, if any, English.
That’s why I’ve also got a little issue with the tone of this thread, despite my rabid anti-amnesty stance on ‘illegals’ (Mexican or otherwise)...(amnesty’s about votes, not immigration). As long as the guy came here legally, I hope he gets justice.
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