The lawyer representing a Black New Yorker who alleges the use of excessive force during her 2020 arrest by police is drawing parallels between her case and the tragic circumstances surrounding George Floyd’s death.
The attorney has filed a civil claim pressing the city of New York, the New York Police Department, and nine of its officers for a “six figures” payout, citing lingering damages from the ordeal.
Five of the cops are named in the complaint. Four are not because their identities “are presently unknown.”
The legal complaint outlines 15 distinct accusations against the defendants, encompassing charges such as wrongful arrest and the disproportionate application of force.
Like Floyd, the Minneapolis man whose death sparked a summer of civil unrest, officers are filmed kneeling on Christine Greaves’ back, as she reportedly exclaims, “I can’t breathe” three times.
Attorney Ugochukwu Uzoh filed the lawsuit on behalf of the 23-year-old in the Eastern District of New York after her arrest on May 2, 2020. The young woman was attending a gathering following a funeral in Brooklyn and reportedly was violating the city’s COVID-19 lockdown mandates.
According to the complaint, Greaves was arrested that evening “simply because she is Black.” The NYPD says she was arrested for “obstructing governmental administration in the second degree” and “disorderly conduct,” charges connected to COVID restrictions.
It further claimed that officers were particularly violent while detaining her, “punching, kicking, cursing, screaming, and yelling at her” before hauling her off to the 77th Precinct, where her suit says she was made to participate in an “illegal and unlawful search” which yielded no contraband.
Uzoh released a video to the press, and it shows the young lady yelling, “I can’t breathe,” and someone blasting the officers, repeatedly saying, “Get your knee off her back.”
“It’s really troubling when you watch the incident that happened and that’s how George Floyd lost his life. Thankfully, my client is still alive,” the lawyer said, according to the Daily Mail.
The complaint states that Greaves attended the funeral of one of her boyfriend’s relatives. Later that evening, she and her partner, Davis Smith, “stood on the front porch of their home… [when] they observed a large number of police officers converge in front of their home harassing some of their friends and relatives who were mourning with them.”
The young woman pulled out her cellphone and started to record the altercation but was told to cut the recording off by some of the officers, according to her attorney.
The officers “threatened to seize her cell phone and arrest and charge her with crimes,” the complaint alleges.
Some of the officers captured in her footage were Samantha Love, Sgt. Derek Jaffe, Cpt. Sean Claxton, Officer Michael Napolitano, and Sgt. Harold Thompson. Also recorded were two additional officers who are unnamed in the lawsuit.
According to the complaint, officers “forcibly grabbed her and slammed her down on the floor–punching, kicking, cursing, screaming, and yelling at her,” singling out Napolitano, who “was captured on a video pinning her down and choking her by kneeling on her neck while Claxton and Doe [Shield #23624] grabbed other parts of her body.”
The lawyer contends her client already suffers from asthma, which was exacerbated by the arrest. Greaves’ request to be transported to a hospital for medical care was also denied.
Now, according to the lawyer, his client is “traumatized” and is seeking to be awarded damages in the “six-figure” ballpark.
The NYPD has not commented on the lawsuit or the arrest.
