Police officers used stun gun on migrant holding toddler, video shows

NEW YORK>> New York City officials are investigating a confrontation at a city-run shelter in Queens in which police officers struck and used a stun gun on a Venezuelan migrant while he was holding his 1-year-old son.

Video footage obtained by

The New York Times shows two police officers, who had been called to the shelter over a dispute Friday night, trying to restrain the man, Yanny Cordero, 47, while he is backed against a closed elevator door at the shelter, his child held in his arms.

One of the officers pulls out a yellow stun gun and appears to stun Cordero before throwing a punch at his head, the video shows.

The officers continue to restrain Cordero after they separate him from his son, pinning his head against a desk as they try to wrestle him to the floor. A third officer gets involved and punches Cordero twice in the face before the officers subdue and arrest him.

“This is abuse, brother!” a man who recorded the video with his phone is heard shouting in Spanish. “Don’t hit him! Don’t hit him! Don’t hit him, brother! That’s an abuse! Where are the human rights?”

Police said they were responding to a call about a dispute involving an intoxicated man who was threatening staff members. They said that officers on the scene gave Cordero multiple warnings and commands to hand the child to someone else.

Cordero said he had not been drinking that night because he had to work the next day. He said the dispute began when he returned to the shelter, in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, with dinner for his family. A shelter employee struck him in the face by the elevators as he struggled to communicate in English, he said.

Cordero was charged with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and violent behavior, obstructing government administration and acting in a manner injurious to a child under 17. Police also arrested and charged his wife, Andrea Parra, 23, who is seen in the video throwing her body between her husband and the police officers.

The couple said that when they were arrested, their 1-yearold son, Yusneide, and their two other boys, ages 3 and 5, were taken by the city’s child welfare agency, the Administration for Children’s Services.

Cordero and Parra were reunited with their children Monday night. The family has been moved to a shelter in Brooklyn.

A spokesperson for City Hall said in a statement: “The health and safety of all migrants and longtime New Yorkers in our care — especially young children — is always a top priority, and this matter is currently under investigation.”