Troubles with aide to Adams
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents tried to enter a Brooklyn homeless shelter Tuesday night but were turned away after failing to produce a warrant, said Christine Quinn, the shelter network’s director.
The agents came to the East New York WIN shelter around 10 p.m. and showed guards a photo of someone they were seeking to detain, she said.
The ICE agents said they had a warrant. When asked to display it, they balked, and WIN guards denied them entry.
“They showed nothing except for a picture of an individual,” Quinn said. “The guards kept saying, ‘Show us a warrant signed by a judge.’ They wouldn’t show a warrant.”
ICE spokeswoman Rachael Yong Yow denied that ICE sent an enforcement team to the shelter.
But WIN’s head of security said he was talking to the shelter’s guards during the standoff and that eight people wearing ICE insignia who identified themselves as agents were in fact there.
If a warrant had been produced, shelter guards would have then been required to send a picture or scan of it to lawyers with the city Department of Homeless Services. If DHS deemed it up to snuff, the guards would have then presumably provided access to the facility.
Staff on Wednesday declined to discuss the night raid.
“We can’t talk about it,” one guard said upon leaving the high-rise shelter.
“It’s good they didn’t let them in,” said one of the A staffer fired by former Gov. David Paterson amid abuse allegations almost a decade ago is now the Brooklyn borough president’s aide — and mentioned in a new lawsuit from a disabled woman who says she was forcibly removed from the politician’s parking spot.
David Johnson (photo), an aide working under Borough President Eric Adams,’ recently surfaced in the federal lawsuit filed by Juliet Dietrich, a grandmother and former corrections officer. Dietrich claims that Johnson and a city worker ordered her to move her car from a parking space reserved for “authorized vehicles only — Borough President.”
Dietrich says her handicapped permit means she is legally entitled to park there.
In her lawsuit, filed Monday, she alleges that the city worker, Department of Citywide Administrative Service Special Officer Charles Parker, dragged her from her Ford Explorer, slapped her in handcuffs and helped throw her in jail.
Johnson, who she claims initiated the run-in, did not immediately return calls. He is not named as a defendant in the suit.
A spokesman for Adams said Tuesday that Dietrich ran over someone’s foot during the parking space dispute. Dietrich has denied that.
Adams on Wednesday defended his decision to hire Johnson, saying he is “a strong proponent of the power of second chances.”
“We hired David Johnson because he has significant legislative experience at the highest level of state government, and a strong track record of service to our borough, city, and state,” Adams said in a written statement. “Very few black men ever reach the same level of government experience as David Johnson, and he has played a vital role in my office in moving Brooklyn forward.”