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White Woman Sues NYPD Over Invasive Stop-And-Frisk In Williamsburg
By
Ben Yakas
Published Jul 4, 2013
Modified Jul 4, 2013
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Jul 4, 2013
Modified Jul 4, 2013
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Last week, Mayor Bloomberg argued that NYPD officers "disproportionately stop whites too much and minorities too little," inspiring the wrath of city councilmen and mayoral candidates by justifying discriminatory NYPD policies. So it must be a mixed bag for him to learn that a 22-year-old white woman is suing the NYPD for an invasive stop-and-frisk in Williamsburg last year. “I don’t think anyone, no matter what color you are, deserves to be treated like that,” Samantha Rosenbaum told The Post.
Rosenbaum, who grew up in Essex County, NJ and graduated from Bard College, was interning at vegan clothing store Vaute Couture on Grand Street when the incident happened on July 17th last summer. The 5-foot-1, 110-pound woman was bending down to say hi to a neighborhood cat when a plainclothes cop approached her. “He was really aggressive,” Rosenbaum recalled. “I had no idea who he was, [so] I just kept walking.”
According to her lawsuit, two people then threw her against the hood of a car, and demanded to know why she hadn’t stopped and whether she had drugs on her. “This whole time, I didn’t know who these people are,” she said. “Finally, after a few minutes, they tell me they are police.” They apparently didn't believe she was just petting a kitty, and instead a female officer lifted up Rosenbaum’s tank top, pulled back her bra and looked inside. She then allegedly pulled open Rosenbaum’s jean shorts and looked inside her underwear.
Rosenbaum says that as she was crying, the officers threatened to haul her into jail and write her up for a felony, but eventually, “they told me they didn’t want me to have a bad impression of cops so they were going to let me go.”
“She thought she was getting kidnapped,” said her lawyer, Michael Goldstein. “This is a very nice young lady. This was a false arrest and imprisonment. It’s assault.”
Tagged
brooklyn
lawsuit
mayor bloomberg
nypd
police
stop and frisk
white people
williamsburg
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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