BOY USED AS ‘HUMAN SHIELD’
HRA officers: Kid-tug mom ‘disorderly’
Two peace officers at the center of a disturbing tug-of-war over a young child in a Brooklyn social-services office told their bosses it was all the mom’s fault, internal documents show.
The bizarre claim surfaced Friday, as both the NYPD and the Human Resources Administration vowed reforms.
The HRA also suspended two of its officers Friday for allegedly verbally escalating the incident — but the NYPD has yet to take any public action against the cops who actually laid hands on the mom at a SNAP center in Boerum Hill.
In the newly released documents, two HRA officers claim Jazmine Headley, 23, acted “disorderly,” “loud” and “irate” when she refused to stand up from the floor of the facility as ordered.
Headley bit and kicked the peace officers and even used her little boy as a “human shield” in a selfish effort to avoid arrest, the officers claimed, contradicting the HRA’s own account of the caught-on-video confrontation.
The HRA on Friday suspended peace officers Tonyin RamosWilliams and Bettina BarnettWeeks for 30 days for allegedly failing to de-escalate the situation before police were summoned.
Video of the mother’s desperate attempt to cling to her 17-monthold son, Damone Buckman III, went viral, prompting a series of high-level administrative mea culpas that continued Friday.
The incident “was completely unacceptable and should never happen again in New York City,” HRA Commissioner Steven Banks said in a statement apologizing to Headley and announcing the officers’ suspensions.
“Clearly, something went wrong,” NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill concurred in his own statement, which also blamed the two peace officers for escalating the incident.
But two female HRA peace officers — Ramos-Williams and a second woman who is not iden- tified — told their superiors a tale that diverges wildly from the official accounts.
Headley paid no heed as multiple peace officers in the SNAP office tried to calm her down, instead “saying she is not f--king moving anywhere,” one account claimed.
“While resisting she put the baby between her legs in a tight grip. NYPD officers tried to get the baby off her but she was putting up a fight,” one account stated, adding that Headley then “kicked me on my right shoulder.”
A lawyer for Headley did not respond to a request for commment.
Teamsters Local 237 boss Greg Floyd, who represents HRA guards, told The Post on Friday that City Hall was “scapegoating” the peace officers.
“They are heroes and deserve our gratitude,” he said.
City Hall denied ordering the two suspensions.