Dismal Tale of Arrest for Tiniest of Crimes

[Are_grits_groceries]

The arresting officer came by the cell, Samantha Zucker said, to make snide remarks about finding her with a friend in Riverside Park after its 1 a.m. closing. “He was telling me that I needed to get a new boyfriend, that I should get a guy who takes me out to dinner,” Ms. Zucker said. “He mocked me for being from Westchester.”

Early in the morning on Oct. 22, a Saturday, Ms. Zucker, 21, and her friend Alex Fischer, also 21, were stopped by the police in Riverside Park and given tickets for trespassing. Mr. Fischer was permitted to leave after he produced his driver’s license. But Ms. Zucker, on a visit to New York City with a group of Carnegie Mellon University seniors looking for jobs in design industries, had left her wallet in a hotel two blocks away.

She was handcuffed. For the next 36 hours, she was moved from a cell in the 26th Precinct station house on West 126th Street to central booking in Lower Manhattan and then — because one of the officers was ending his shift before Ms. Zucker could be photographed for her court appearance, and you didn’t think he was going to take the subway uptown while his partner stayed with her at booking, did you? — she was brought back to Harlem.

There she waited in a cell until a pair of fresh police officers were rustled up to bring her back downtown for booking, where she spent a second night in custody. The judge proceeded to dismiss the ticket in less than a minute.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/02/nyregion/dismal-tale-of-arrest-for-tiniest-of-crimes.html?_r=1&hp

OUT.OF.CONTROL.
These are the cops that give all the others a bad name. How are you to know when you will run into a cretin like this? It's like roulette.

[ellisonz]

1. I wish I could say she should...

sue, but frankly it'd be better if she'd file a complaint with the FBI's New York office -

26 Federal Plaza, 23rd Floor
New York, NY 10278-0004
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone] / 4074

E-mail: [e-mail]

[left is right]

2. While I sympathize with Ms Zucker

I do think all these crazy arrests will eventually help to solve many of the problems associated with our police and justice system by bankrupting it.

[Loge23]

3. There once was a country...

This is just one of many instances of abuse of power by the NYPD, not to mention the similar instances being repeated all over the former U.S.A.
I realize it's perfectly acceptable in the former U.S.A. to willfully violate civil rights, rights which really no longer exist - so I get that. But what about the now-sacrosanct budget implications of this false arrest? How much did the city pay to falsely incarcerate a completely innocent citizen?
The arresting P.O. should be immediately arrested himself and summarily fired. But, that was in the former U.S.A.
I guess we should be grateful that we still have this forum to comment - probably all the while implicating ourselves once they start rounding up "subversives".

[leveymg]

4. Example of "Quality of Life" policing with limited discretion to Release On Own Recognizance. Blame

Law & Order types in NYC, led by Guiliani, who thought the previous system with some room for NYPD discretion to arrest was too lenient on "quality of life" crimes.

[hootinholler]

5. WTF? Why does she need ID?

Why would producing ID allow her to be released?

Since when is it a requirement to produce ID?