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.
Oh Scotsman... Now I read your profile & I understand where you're coming from. You're sucking off the tit that I'm paying for. You never produced a useful good or service during your entire career but you're playing self-righteous now.
Were you a traffic cop? Did you make pregnant women cry by giving them traffic tickets? How about demanding that unsuspecting motorists let you search their car without telling them they could simply say 'no?'. Cops are invariably the people we identified in high school as people that would be, but shouldn't be, people in any position of authority.
No, you did nothing useful. You are a worthless human being and the world would be no worse off without the last 30 years of your life. Wow that sucks. I'd hate to be you. But you're too stupid to know that (if you weren't stupid you wouldn't have been a cop - you'd have done something useful).
There is no gray area between you and the Tyrant’s gun.
Yup. The cops' immunity needs to be changed drastically. If they do anything outside the scope of their lawful rights and responsibilities they need to be treated just like the rest of us: personally liable for their actions. That means if you search a car, arrest a suspect, harass a citizen - and you aren't absolutely, completely justified in doing so - then you lose your house. Why do these people get to play by different rules than the rest of us?
I see your tagline and to whatever extent your career might have included military service I retract my comments regarding your career. It isn't clear that you did, but if you served in the military then thank you for that - that is very honorable work.
in about 5 years, the rookies going in now will be off probation and beginning to get into specialized units, and becoming bosses and detectives.
all the veterans are leaving after 20 years. there was a huge hiring boom in the mid-80's and they are all leaving. no more expertise to help the young guys. the job has gotten very young. it's going to be bad.
You are a fool, and a mindless bigot. Return to your media masters’ laps and continue licking their butts. You are very good at it.
I was going to call you a bootlicker but then I realized you were a bootwearer. 'Nuff said.
Why don’t you respond to my #383? That would be a productive thing to do. Beats harassing innocent citizens (in my book at least).
And what charge would that be?
Are people's homes regularly confiscated if they break into cars or harass people?
I'm unaware of any legal code, federal or state, which contains "loss of house" as a scheduled penalty for a misdemeanor - or even a felony.
“If so, thered be a whole lot of twenty-somethings needing bypasses. This 50 y/o has been eating fat for a long time, and his bypass number came up.”
Had the man been merely acting, he could have been charged with interfering with police officers in the performance of their duties, and other such.
Regardless of how police officers are capable of making mistakes as are any other human beings, their training should have made room for this man to be checked out, since they discovered on the spot that the stop and rough handling was their error.
No, they just abandoned this man. NOT good public service.
American liberty is as much threatened by the "law 'n' order" types who wrongly call themselves conservatives as they are by the "nanny state" socialists who want to regulate every aspect of human life.
“American liberty is as much threatened by the “law ‘n’ order” types who wrongly call themselves conservatives as they are by the “nanny state” socialists who want to regulate every aspect of human life.”
Three things. I didn’t read your post 383 so I couldn’t respond to it. Secondly, I wish to thank you for repeatedly making my original point with your posts. It’s quite amusing to watch.
Lastly, you should be proud of yourself. You are the bootwearer, here. You are the quintesential SA brownshirt. You have no cognitive abilities or upper brain function. It’s all raw, emotion driven responses to spoonfed media stories. Just like the original brownshirts you are a tool, a useful idiot.
Again, thanks for proving that over and over, and over again.
One last thing. Being in the military in and of itself isn’t anymore honorable than flipping burgers. It’s what you do while in that is either honorable or not. Had you ever served(it’s obvious that you have not. Your type never do)you would know what I’m talking about.
The only “facts” we have are that the police caused an innocent man to have a heart attack. You are the one who made up the possibility that the police woman was not responsible for that. You made that up out of thin air. I didn’t revise my original statement. I simply clarified it to include the possibility that your fantasy facts could be true. I never wanted to jail officers who did not cause his heart attack.
I realize this explanation won’t mean much to you. You and your fellow police groupies are grasping at any straws in your attempts to defend the indefensible. If it makes you feel better I will admit that I should have said “If she was involved with causing this mans heart attack, she belongs in jail” in the first place. Happy now?
Exactly. No other media report is given the free pass that these "the cops are thugs" stories gets.
Every other piece of MSM spin gets dissected and challenged -- but not with these. What's up with that?
My post was regarding the loss of immunity - the civil immunity police have when performing their job. The police should be personally responsible for their actions in civil court, just like the rest of us. They screw up, get sued and lose their 'stuff'.
It’s called ass hats that can’t recognize typos.
Interesting. Seems like any time I read an article that claims police abuse, the names of the officers involved have been given.
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