Attorneys Want Charges Dropped Against Men Who Say Were Target of Sexual Discrimination

Two very different accounts are given for what happened on June 2, at 4:00 in the morning in Bed-Stuy, between three men and the police officers that arrested them.

According to 79th Precinct police, the first man, 26-year-old Josh Williams, was arrested for disorderly conduct (public urination), after which his roommates, Ben Collins and Antonio Maenza, were also arrested for trying to obstruct Williams’s arrest. 

But according to Williams and his two friends, they were walking down Tompkins Avenue early that morning, minding their own business before becoming the victims of an unprovoked attack by cops— an attacked they say smacked clearly of gender bias and sexual discrimination.

The NYPD has not responded to a request for comment. But this is how NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne has recorded the incident: 

• A police officer observed a male urinating on a dumpster in the precinct parking lot near the 79th Pct  gasoline pumps
• The same police officer approached the  individual who was uncooperative and refused to ID himself
• The police officer attempted to arrest the individual
• The individual, who appeared highly intoxicated, was combative and uncooperative. He resisted arrest and force was employed to arrest him, during which time he incurred a laceration and bruising.
• He was charged with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, and for violating the local law against urinating in public.
  
• Other officers assisted in the arrest.
• Two males interfered with  the arrest by getting between the suspect and the officers, trying to pull the suspect away, and refusing to leave Police Department property when directed. The two were cited for obstructing governmental administration.

The incident was captured on video by one of the men arrested. Click here to watch (warning: explicit language).

But the men who were arrested tell an entirely different story. They allege they were called “F**ing faggots,” by one of the officers, which they say can be heard at around 2:49 in the video.

“They are three petite young men, and they are singled out by an officer and he calls them over to the parking lot,” said Cynthia Conti-Cook, criminal defense and civil rights attorney representing the three men. “And then the officer, after calling them into the parking lot, then is isolating them, making them less safe, less accessible to the street and putting them in a situation that is unsafe.”

 “I do this a lot,” Conti-Cook told Bed-Stuy Patch. “These are the cases that come in all the time. And usually they involve people that police think don’t think will fight back. However in this circumstance, I have not seen a case that escalates so quickly and that becomes so violent.

“And so to the extent that there’s nothing else to explain the escalation that happens here also is the reason I think it was based on sexual orientation.”

Conti-Cook added that her agency, Stoll, Glickman & Bellina, have observed there are a handful of police precincts throughout Brooklyn that disproportionately account for all of the police violence in the city, and the 79th Precinct was among them.

So what happens now?

“We’re representing all three of the men for the purposes of getting the charges dropped and pursuing charges against the officers,” said Conti-Cook. “We are keeping all legal options on the table, clearly including a civil rights lawsuit based on violations of city, state, and federal constitutional laws.”

Check back with Bed-Stuy Patch for an update on the this case as it is made available.