‘HELL’ AFTER NYPD ARREST
Trans woman’s suit tells of humiliation
A Bronx woman went through “hell” when cops slapped her in pink handcuffs, mercilessly mocked her for hours and charged her with impersonation — all because she’s transgender, a shocking lawsuit filed Tuesday claims.
Linda Dominguez, who legally changed her name two years ago, told the Daily News her painful saga began last April as she was returning home from a friend’s house.
She had stepped off the bus and began walking through Claremont Park when three NYPD officers stopped her about 11:45 p.m. for being in the park after it closed.
Dominguez, who speaks limited English, didn’t understand much of what the police told her, and didn’t have her ID with her, but provided the name she previously used because it’s the one police have on record from a prior arrest, according to the lawsuit and her legal team.
Their conversation was “friendly” at first, she recalled in Spanish through a translator, but then the police arrested her for trespassing, put her in metallic-colored cuffs and brought her to the 44th Precinct stationhouse.
“In the park, the conversation was fine, even friendly,” she said. “But then once I asked them if I was going to be arrested, and they said ‘yes’ and they put handcuffs on me and brought me to the precinct, is where my hell began.”
At the stationhouse, she explained to an interpreter that she is transgender, that she had changed her name and that she had provided both names to cops. According to her lawsuit, the police responded by ridiculing her.
They removed the metallic-colored handcuffs they initially used and Officer Megan Francis then allegedly replaced them with pink cuffs. The cops then left her cuffed after putting her in a cell, making her the only person restrained in shackles inside the precinct clink.
“I could barely understand anything, but I felt like they were making fun of me because there was no one else there for them to be making fun of,” she said.
According to her lawsuit, which was filed in Bronx Supreme Court, the cops wouldn’t call her by her legal name and referred to her with masculine pronouns.
“They refused to use the name ‘Linda’ or the words ‘she’ or ‘her’ even though they knew she was a transgender woman whose name was now Linda,” the suit claims.
Little did Dominguez know at the time, but the police had also hit her with an additional charge of “false personation,” which she said she later learned about through a lawyer with the Bronx Defenders.
Robert Hodgson, the lead attorney in her claim, said the NYPD’s Patrol Guide forbids cops from using that charge against transgender people who provide them with a preferred name.
“The Patrol Guide currently prohibits exactly this practice,” he said.
Dominquez, who works as a cosmetologist and a performer, is seeking unspecified monetary damages, saying it’s harder to work because she’s lost her motivation since the incident.
She and her lawyers declined to go into detail about her prior arrest, or provide her previous name.
Advocates slammed the police Tuesday for their alleged mistreatment of Dominguez.
“It is hard to imagine the police arresting a white person for walking through a park, even if it were after dark,” said Gabriel Arkles, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU. “It is outrageous that a police officer not only did that, but then claimed a woman committed false personation simply because she is transgender and provided both her previous and current name.”
An NYPD spokeswoman declined to comment on the specifics of the case, but defended the department’s efforts to meet “the needs of the LGBTQ community with sensitivity, equity and effectiveness.”
“The NYPD will continue to communicate and collaborate with the LGBTQ community as we seek to further strengthen our relationship with all of the communities throughout the city that we protect and serve,” the spokeswoman said.