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.
Are you reading imapired? If you had bothered to actually read the article before shooting off your big mouth, you would see he only weighs 150 lbs. The likelihood of his eating above normal amounts of dietary fat is exceedingly small.
I agree with you completely; so long as they are allowed the same assumption of innocence as everyone else.
The courts are to blame for the mass confusion between what is justice and what is law (legal.)
For instance, the common conundrum of "illegal search". Usually that defines two crimes as being committed but, instead of dealing with two crimes, both, not just one, the focus is shifted solely to the LEO and the mass murder, two tons of dope, explosives in the truck are dismissed without further action.
That creates a clear and mindless injustice.
Notice that the focus is on the heart problems and not even the fact that it was the wrong car? The apologists are diverting as usual. No different than a no knock on the wrong address in my opinion.
Cops are highly trained in what to do when confronting a “perp”. Once they are in action, they trained to NEVER question if they are dealing with a perp or an innocent person. Because of this we have teachers with heart attacks, little old ladies blasted to bits during the invasion of the wrong house, and Africans who don’t speak English shot to death when they take out a wallet.
Perhaps robot cops would do the same job for less money.
Did you happen to notice that he didn't Screeeeeeaaaaaaaam!?
He said "OW! OW!OW! OW OW OW OW!"
Who says the word 'OW' when they are really hurt???
How does this have anything to do with their liability? If they used excessive force under the circumstances (and if the guy didn't resist then they did) then their actions were the proximate cause of his heart attack. It doesn't matter if he would have had one next week or next year.
"Assault 1st - Penal Law 120.10, sub 3: Under circumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life, he recklessly engages in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to another person, and thereby causes serious physical injury to another person."
Perhaps, but not impossible. At any rate, the pre existing condition of his heart doesn’t matter. The officers caused his heart attack to occur at that moment on that day, by their misconduct, and so are liable.
Not my focus. Just the cop suckers' (I guess all that shinola they eat makes them lose the ability to see anything but blue)
Off topic, I’m curious about your screen name. Why oh8eleven?
They did. Their job is not to hold his hand, but to find the actual suspect. Time is wasting.
Or maybe in a semi-related thread, you'd care to spin how a sheriff's deputy up in Wisconsin blows away six people as a "stress" factor?
What are you talking about? What does that psycho loser in WI have to do with this thread?
Close enough. We’re on the same page reading different verses.
Sweetie...
Why does everyone on this thread assume they know everything there is to know about the criminal and civil codes of the state of New York?
They aren't liable until a court finds them to be so.
This article certainly doesn't establish liability, and I doubt you know much more about the case than what the article narrates.
§ 120.00 Assault in the third degree.
A person is guilty of assault in the third degree when:
1. With intent to cause physical injury to another person, he causes such injury to such person or to a third person; or
2. He recklessly causes physical injury to another person; or
3. With criminal negligence, he causes physical injury to another person by means of a deadly weapon or a dangerous instrument.
Assault in the third degree is a class A misdemeanor.
That about covers it.
§ 120.00 Assault in the third degree.
A person is guilty of assault in the third degree when:
1. With intent to cause physical injury to another person, he causes such injury to such person or to a third person; or
2. He recklessly causes physical injury to another person; or
3. With criminal negligence, he causes physical injury to another person by means of a deadly weapon or a dangerous instrument.
Assault in the third degree is a class A misdemeanor.
Sorry for the double post. FR came back with “Temporarily Unavailable” - I didn’t think it had posted.
One would have to argue that police acted with an almost-unprecedented degree of excessive force to transform a healthy heart into a damaged heart in the course of an armed traffic stop-and-hold.
That would very dramatic courtroom fare and would definitely enhance the plaintiff's chances of a favorable verdict as well as a much larger award.
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