NYC settles w/ Jazmine Headley for 625K - the mom tazed/baby ripped away for sitting on floor
A year ago, New York City cops wrestled Jazmine Headley to the floor of a social services office, and forcibly wrested her 1-year-old son from her arms in a videotaped struggle that eventually culminated in an apology from Mayor Bill de Blasio. Now the city will fork over $625,000 for the incident, reports NBC News.
Headley sued the city in August, alleging she was "humiliated, assaulted, physically injured, threatened with a taser, brutally separated from her son, handcuffed, arrested, and jailed—all by employees of the City of New York."
Headley was seated on the floor after the center in Brooklyn ran out of available seating, and officers asked her to leave. When she demanded to see a supervisor, a struggle ensued and she can be heard in a bystander's video crying, "They're hurting my son! They're hurting my son!" All charged against her were eventually dropped.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/13/nyregion/jazmine-headley-video-settlement.html
$625,000 Settlement for Woman Whose Child Was Torn From Her Arms
Jazmine Headley sued over a confrontation with New York City workers that was captured in a widely seen video.
The video spread quickly online: Security guards and police officers pry a baby boy from his mother’s arms as she lies on the floor of a public benefits office in Brooklyn.
“They’re hurting my son!” the mother, Jazmine Headley, can be heard crying as she struggles to hold onto the boy while the officers try to arrest her. “They’re hurting my son!”
The episode, in December 2018, touched a nerve, capturing what New Yorkers who rely on public benefits say is the uncaring and even hostile treatment they often get from city workers who themselves feel pressure to follow rules.
The charges against Ms. Headley were ultimately dropped. Her public benefits, which had been stripped, were restored, and Mayor Bill de Blasio apologized to her publicly. Nonetheless, saying she was standing up for herself and others in similar circumstances, she filed a federal lawsuit against the city.
--------------
Ms. Headley had taken the day off from her job cleaning offices on Dec. 8, 2018, to go to a public benefits office in Boerum Hill. She wanted to find out why the city had abruptly stopped paying for day care for her son, who was 1 at the time.
Unable to find a seat in the office’s crowded waiting room after about three hours, Ms. Headley sat on the floor next to her son’s stroller. When security guards told her to leave, she asked to speak with a supervisor.
When she walked away from the guards, they and police officers who had been called in grabbed her. She was arrested and charged with resisting arrest, acting in a manner injurious to a child, obstructing governmental administration and trespassing.
“By the end of the day, Ms. Headley had been humiliated, assaulted, physically injured, threatened with a Taser, brutally separated from her son, handcuffed, arrested, and jailed — all by employees of the City of New York,” her lawsuit said, noting that the guards and police officers should have been trained in how to defuse such situations.
= new reply since forum marked as read
