NYPD Allegedly Harasses, Beats Man Who Unknowingly Gave Cop Killer Directions
The man who unknowingly gave Ismaaiyl Brinsley directions to the Brooklyn housing project where he gunned down two police officers in December claims the NYPD has harassed, and even beaten him, since then.
Karim Baker told the New York Daily News he had no idea at the time that his help would lead Brinsley to Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, who were ambushed and killed in a shootout. When the U.S. Postal Service worker, then working for FedEX, met Brinsley on the street, the two had never crossed paths before. The latter simply wanted directions to the Marcy Houses, a housing project in Bedford-Stuyvesant, and the former obliged.
“I have nothing in my heart against law enforcement at all,” said Baker, who stressed how uneventful the encounter was. “I have no hatred at all toward law enforcement.” He was simply giving directions to a stranger who’d asked for them.
Even so, Baker and his lawyer, Eric Subin, allege that the NYPD has since harassed the postal worker for his supposed part in the shooting deaths of Ramos and Liu. Since participating in the ensuing murder investigation, Baker claims he has been stopped 20 times for minor traffic infractions, but never ticketed. As a result, no records of the stops exist.
“Twenty times in a year is a lot of times to be pulled over and never issued a summons,” explained Subin. “This is our strongly held theory. It’s too much of a bizarre coincidence not to hold water.”
But repeated traffic stops aren’t the only thing the department has apparently done to Baker. On Oct. 21, a group of officers in an unmarked car stopped Baker and arrested him. He was subsequently charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance, parking within 15 feet of a hydrant, obstructing cops and resisting arrest. According to Baker and Subin, however, what actually happened was quite different.
“I was being kicked, choked, punched, on the floor, stomped on,” Baker said. “I had a foot on my neck and a foot on my head. Someone stomped my head on the concrete.”
Subin added that “they threw him down on his head. Then two of them start beating the hell out of him, a particularly savage beating. They all joined in the beating. They beat him until they seemed to be satisfied with what they had done to him.”
Baker is preparing to sue the NYPD, and filed a notice of claim in the Queens Supreme Court on Tuesday in preparation.
[h/t Gawker]
[Image via screengrab]
