<
https://hellgatenyc.com/the-nypd-took-this-dog-into-custody-because-his-owner-filmed-the-police>
'On May 3, 2020, Molly Griffard stepped out of her Bed-Stuy apartment to take
her dog Harvey, a nine-year-old Yorkie, for a walk. They hadn't gotten far when
Griffard saw police pulling a young Black man out of a bodega and around the
corner, where they already had several other young Black men up against a wall.
"There were a lot of officers there, and they were acting very aggressive, so I
pulled out my phone and I started recording," Griffard said. "I believed what I
was seeing was an illegal stop, question, and frisk."
Griffard has some expertise in this subject. She's an attorney with the Legal
Aid Society, where she works on police misconduct issues as part of a division
dedicated to reforming the criminal legal system.
As she filmed from a safe distance, Griffard told
Hell Gate, she called out
to the young men lined up against the wall, informing them of their rights to a
lawyer and to remain silent. "That's when one of the officers started pushing
me back, even though I wasn't close enough to interfere with what the police
were doing," she said. "He told me I had to cross the street."
Griffard did cross the street, but she also asked the cop who had pushed her
for his business card, knowing that under the Right to Know Act passed by the
City Council in 2017, he was legally obligated to provide it. But he didn't
comply with her request. "Instead, he spun me around and arrested me and my
dog," she said.
Griffard was not pleased to be getting arrested, but she especially didn't want
her Yorkie taken into custody. A co-worker who lived nearby arrived on the
scene as Griffard was being arrested and offered to take the dog, but the
officers on the scene wouldn't allow it. Instead, they took Griffard and Harvey
to the 79th Precinct, where they separated the two and confiscated Griffard's
phone, booked her for obstruction of government administration, and held
Griffard in a cell for eight hours, initially without a mask. While she was
locked up, officers refused to tell her where they were holding Harvey or how
he was doing, she said.
Griffard was eventually released around 1 a.m. with a desk appearance ticket.
Her charges were dropped even before her first day in court, and the young men
she'd seen up against the wall were never even arrested. Griffard never got her
phone, or the video on it, back from the police. Harvey was traumatized by the
incident, Griffard says, and is now prescribed a low dose of Xanax to treat his
anxiety disorder.'
Via Christoph S.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
