No egg-scuse for cheating on price: Tish
NYPD bodycam videos captured a bipolar Queens man clad minutes earlier in full gladiator gear smashing through a screen door in a wild June melee with police, with officers tasering the suspect a half-dozen times before his fatal heart attack.
“I’m gonna f—- you up, bro!” screamed an enraged George Zapantis, 29, after the arriving officers implored him to put down his samurai sword and come outside. “Come on! Come on, bro! I’ll kill you right now, bro! Motherf—-er! I will f—- you up!”
The wild and lethal June 21 arrest was captured on four separate bodycams made public Tuesday, showing cops arriving at the bizarre scene following a dispute between Zapantis and a neighbor.
The officers repeatedly implored Zapantis to drop the curved blade and exit peacefully before the scene turned violent in a matter of seconds, with the suspect charging at cops gathered in an alleyway outside his apartment.
“This is my house, I have a right to defend myself,” the unhinged Zapantis declared before the rampage began. Zapantis delivered a two-handed, overhand swing with his fists as he bashed his way outside and the cops moved in to subdue the frantic, bellowing suspect.
One cop is heard reacting on camera after Zapantis answered his door in a Romanstyle helmet, with protective medieval sleeves on both arms, a shield in one hand and a sword in the other: “Holy s—-. Did that just happen?”
Minutes later, Zapantis started screaming and came toward the officers assembled outside his basement door in Whitestone. It took several cops to place handcuffs on the suspect as Zapantis was tasered by another officer.
The suspect suffered an apparent cardiac arrest in the ambulance after being tased and died at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Queens.
Zapantis claimed at one point that he couldn’t breathe from a chokehold, with an officer clearly heard responding, “Nobody’s choking you.”
The NYPD is still investigating the incident, with followup interviews scheduled and additional video review before any decision on criminality is made in the case, said police spokesman Sgt. Carlos Nieves in a brief introduction before the two-plus hours of unedited video.
But an initial investigation indicated the use of force was within NYPD guidelines, a source told the Daily News at the time of the incident.
A neighbor had called police in an apparent dispute over a porch light, reporting that Zapantis had brandished the sword at him.
The video showed Zapantis ignoring repeated pleas to calm down and surrender to police, with the suspect telling the cops at one point he had “his own police department.”
A cop on the scene responded: “You don’t have to defend from us. We are the police department.”
The Zapantis family had requested an independent autopsy, with his mother recalling her son as “good (of ) heart, kind to everybody.”
The efforts to put Zapantis in handcuffs went on for some time as he struggled with the arresting officers for at least three minutes, ignoring exhortations to put both hands behind his back — even after he was tasered.
“Just put your arm behind your back,” one officer is heard saying. “Just chill out. We’re all going to talk about it.”
A lawyer for the Zapantis family asserted cops used too much force — and should face criminal charges.
“An independent autopsy was done, there were preliminary findings from our medical expert who believes that the cause of death was cardiac arrest caused by the excessive tasering and by positional asphyxiation,” attorney George Vomvolakis told the Daily News. “There were so many officers and they were all on top of him.”
“The system as a whole failed him,” the lawyer charged.
“There should have been something in their system that indicated that they were responding to a home with an (emotionally disturbed person), and then send someone who was qualified to deal with that situation,” he said.
Vomvolakis vowed the Zapantis family would seek justice. “We will be filing a notice of claim against the city,” he said.
ALBANY — State Attorney General Letitia James believes something is rotten at one of the nation’s largest egg producers.
James’ office announced a lawsuit Tuesday alleging Hillandale Farms ran a-fowl of the law during the height of the pandemic by charging customers up to four times precoronavirus prices for a carton of eggs.
The Ohio- and Pennsylvaniabased company jacked up prices on more than 4 million cartons of eggs sold to grocery store chains, military facilities and wholesalers in the state throughout March and April, according to court documents.
“As this pandemic ravaged our country, Hillandale exploited hardworking New Yorkers to line its own pockets,” James (inset) said. “In less than two months, Hillandale made millions by cheating our most vulnerable communities and our service members, actions that are both unlawful and truly rotten.”
According to
James’ office, Hillandale charged Western Beef supermarkets prices ranging from 59 cents to $1.10 for a dozen large white eggs back in January. On March 15, Hillandale raised that price to $1.49. As the pandemic worsened, the company raised the prices it charged Western Beef repeatedly, eventually reaching $2.93 a dozen — almost five times the price charged earlier in the year.
The suit alleges Hillandale raised prices on eggs sold to Stop & Shop, BJ’s Wholesale Club, Associated Supermarkets and the commissaries at U.S. military bases at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn and upstate Fort Drum. Eggs sold to the commissary at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point jumped from 84 cents in January to $3.15 a carton, according to the suit.
“It’s bad enough that hunger is soaring in New York because of the collapse of the economy and the closure of school meals programs, but it is even worse when food companies increase hunger by using a national crisis to astronomically raises prices through illegal price gouging,” said Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America.