The city awarded $225,000 last week to a woman whose jaw was broken by an NYPD officer as she was about to be arrested in Bed-Stuy, says the New York Daily News.
Jessica Williams, then 17, was stopped by cop Desmond Nichols for riding her bike on the sidewalk in 2008, and when the officer asked to see her ID, she called him “a rookie,” says the paper.
According to pre-trial deposition, Nichols ordered her to put her hands behind her back, but claims that she cocked her elbow as if about to strike. Nichols says he acted in self-defense when he hit Williams in the jaw.
The Daily News says that Williams spent eight days in a hospital, handcuffed to the bed, while her jaw was wired shut.
Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes did not charge Williams with resisting arrest, according to the article, and NYPD Internal Affairs investigated Nichols after the incident, but he was not disciplined.
"I still don't understand why he did it and why they still allow him to be on the police force," Williams told the paper.
