Sues city in parade pounding
Official roughed up at fest
A FORMER city official will file a federal lawsuit Monday against the city and the NYPD alleging he was assaulted by police during a confrontation at last year’s West Indian Day Parade, the Daily News has learned.
Kirsten John Foy was serving as the director of public affairs for the office of public advocate when he and Brooklyn Councilman Jumaane Williams say they were roughed up and handcuffed by cops after entering a “frozen zone” near the Brooklyn Public Library. They were headed to a luncheon for city officials at the Brooklyn Museum.
Foy was “lawfully present” and wearing “VIP credentials” related to the parade, according to the suit, when he was tripped by a cop, thrown to the ground and then piled on by several more officers.
“When I was tripped, I felt something pop in my knee,” Foy told The News. “When I was lifted off the ground, rear-cuffed, something snapped in my shoulder.”
Foy suffered a fractured kneecap and torn ligament and underwent surgery in January.
He needs another operation to repair a rotator cuff injury to his shoulder.
The incident turned into a major embarrassment for the NYPD, galvanizing outrage against the depart- ment’s widespread stopand-frisk policy that critics say unfairly — and illegally — targets minorities.
Foy and Williams, who are black, had been granted permission to enter the frozen zone by a high-ranking police commander, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union.
“For this to happen to someone, who at the time, was a public official makes this act of police brutality particularly egregious,” said Foy’s lawyer Sanford Rubenstein, who is filing the suit in Brooklyn Federal Court. Shortly after the incident, the NYPD issued a statement suggesting the confrontation with Williams and Foy was connected to someone punching a cop. Two police officers and a captain were disciplined after Internal Affairs Bureau Chief Charles Campisi reviewed the incident.
A video showed Foy was walking backward when the much-larger cop grabbed his upper body and took him down with a leg maneuver.
Foy said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly later told him he was sorry the incident had occurred. Williams is not a plaintiff in the suit, which seeks unspecified monetary and punitive damages.
“This isn’t just about what happened to me,” Foy said. “It happens thousands of times daily to Latino and African-American men who don’t have a high profile like me to stand up and say something about it.”