Posted on 10/08/2007 9:23:47 AM PDT by SubGeniusX
A mild-mannered Brooklyn high school teacher says he was nearly scared to death by NYPD cops who mistook him for a perp.
When the violent encounter was over, Lester Jacob, 50, suffered a heart attack and was left on his own in the street by cops, who accused him of "acting."
In July he underwent open-heart surgery.
Jacob had the misfortune to be driving home through Brownsville, Brooklyn, on June 22 around the same time cops were on the lookout for a hit-and-run driver. Jacob, an earth science teacher at James Madison High School in Midwood, heard a siren, looked in his rear-view mirror and dutifully pulled over for the radio car behind him.
He wasn't prepared for what happened next. Two officers rushed up to Jacob's vehicle and pointed their guns at his head, according to a lawsuit filed in Brooklyn Federal Court.
Cursing at him, they ordered Jacobs out of the car and roughly cuffed him.
"One officer crushed his knee into Mr. Jacob's back," the complaint states. "They then repeatedly slammed his head onto the car and then pressed his head against the car for some time."
Additional officers arrived on the scene with a witness to the earlier accident. The witness told them Jacob was the wrong guy.
"'I told you it was a white Maxima,'" the witness reportedly said, according to the complaint. Jacob drives a white Infiniti.
Jacob told the cops he was experiencing chest pains and began coughing uncontrollably.
A female cop said, "Nice acting," according to Jacob, and then drove off. Jacob said he struggled to drive home, stopping to vomit on the side of the road.
His wife rushed him to the hospital, where doctors determined he had suffered a heart attack.
"I was scared to death," Jacob said of his brush with the NYPD. "I was feeling terror."
His attorney John Lambros said there was no reason for the cops to handcuff or use excessive force against the 150-pound teacher while they were waiting for the witness to show up.
The cops were not identified, but their radio car number has been turned over to the Civilian Complaint Review Board. A spokeswoman for the city Law Department said the complaint is being reviewed.
Aggravated Assault (they were armed). Assault under color of authority. Failure to render aid. Perhaps others.
What other big soak-the-taxpayers schemes do you have up your sleeve?
It's not about soaking the taxpayers. It's about making the taxpayers accountable for the government they put in place.
It doesn't surprise me anymore, this place is full of statists like this. I may well leave FR over it.
Yeah. If it were me, they'd be hauling bodies off by the truck load.
Good thing I work in a nice quiet office and fab...
Or his doctors determined that he wasn’t healthy enough for surgery, perhaps?
:::Sigh:::I've never said what the cops did was okay. Stop jumping to conclusions and go get some of that real exercise you claim to prefer.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Not everyone with heart disease has a heart attack. Many get symptoms that result in procedures to head off a heart attack (angioplasty, stents, bypass surgery).
“I agree. The cops acted inappropriately in this incident (if it happened as reported) and should be disciplined or fired.”
Why do cops always get a pass? If cops commit a crime they should be jailed.
Normally, after a heart attack, one has to recover sufficiently to survive open heart surgery which is very traumatic. This usually means bed rest under a physicians care. You are correct in that a heart attack that doesn’t kill you is preferable to one that does however.
Ummmmm, the article says the had the heart attack on the spot.
With socialized medicine one would be astonished to be treated so promptly.
First of all, we don't have a complete version of the events. You are making an assumption after the fact in order to criticize associated actions also after the fact. A child's view of reality.
The courts have officially decided that the police function is not to provide 'appropriate' (whatever that means) assistance to people in danger; they can't (are not allowed to) prevent crimes, just fix them after they happen.
Last I heard, cops aren't issued Ouija Boards.
The use of force is another issue altogether. We don't have any corroboration of what actually happened, yet. The described 'abuse' may have happenned or not. It may have been justified or not. From what was written, I have no way of knowing, nor does anyone else who was not there.
I just know that, if under those circumstances, I made the mistake of asserting my rights, claiming victimhood, getting arrogantly combative, verbally or otherwise before allowing the guys with the guns from knowing I am no danger to them, I have some serious survival deficiencies, or a total lack of brains.
They would have said what the law says today: if your rights have been violated by a law enforcement officer you have a right to swear out a criminal complaint and to file a civil suit.
Which is precisely what Mr. Jacobs is doing.
“Apparently this man’s emdical condition was so serious he waited a few weeks to have surgery.”
Apparently you didnt read the article. His wife took him to the hospital as soon as he was able to make it home.
But thats ok, cops can do no wrong. They are just misunderstood heros who don’t get to shoot nearly enough people.
You’re an idiot.
“igh:::I’ve never said what the cops did was okay. Stop jumping to conclusions and go get some of that real exercise you claim to prefer.”
With all this sighing you’d better watch your stress levels. You indicated they didn’t do anything wrong and this guy was just positioning for a lawsuit.
As the wife of a Police Executive, I have the answer to that question,unions and town selectboards are the major impediments to dealing with problem officers in my area. My husband wanted psychological testing for any new recruits in his dept and the selectmen and union went bananas!!!! Eventually he was successful, but what a mess.He also had an officer who was bipolar whom he has been trying to dismiss for over a year and the union has been giving him grief. He had to go through hoops to get the guy off the street!!! The guy filed discrimination charges against the dept, and tried to sue the dept on trumped up charges and even now that it seems close to resolution, the guy is still a PIA to the dept.
Not all LEO’s are bad guys and I think even you cophaters know that, but it’s not an easy job and if any of you can do a better job, I challenge you to get your degree in Criminal Justice, take the exam, go to the Academy, get hired, and show the seasoned professionals how it should be done!!!
These cops mentioned in the article are terribly wrong and should be disciplined, but I guarentee that if their chief tries to do something, the union will fight it to the end!!!!
I knew you’d be here eventually. You know as little about heart disease as you do about everything else, except licking jackboots.
Invented any phony “death threats” against yourself lately?
*sigh*
Can you point to one that says he does? I think it’s funny that you think it’s it’s perfectly acceptable for you to assume he has a pre existing heart condition, yet unthinkable for us to assume he didn’t?
The truth is none of us knows, so all this assuming is pointless, and beside the point anyway. Even if he did have a pre existing heart condition, the officers were the reason he suffered a heart attack at that moment on that day. They are liable.
Well said. I hadn’t realized that a psych exam isn’t administered when you go through the Academy. You’d think it’d be right in line with the physical testing. (Of course, you’d think the same thing about the military as well...)
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