Mark Moody said he was taking his usual nicotine break on the window ledge of his Peck Slip home on a hot August day with a cigarette in one hand and a cellphone in the other, a scant 12 feet off the ground. He was shocked when a police car rolled up and two cops jumped out.
“Are you about to commit suicide?” one cop asked.
“If I was going to commit suicide, this would be a pretty dumb place to do it,” the 40-year-old trial lawyer scoffed. “If I jumped from here, I’d just sprain my ankle.”
[...]
Before he knew it, a beefy officer was inside his apartment, lifting him out of his own living-room window from behind, Moody said. The cop slammed him on the living-room floor while another kneeled on top of him and cuffed him, he claimed. [...] The attorney was thrown into an ambulance and taken to Beth Israel Medical Center.The on-duty psychiatrist apologized before quickly discharging him, Moody said. “I talked to him for three minutes, and he said, ‘Look, I’m really sorry. I apologize on behalf of the city,’ ” Moody recalled.
[...]
Moody, who The Post found still takes his cigarette breaks sitting in his open window, sued the city and the police officers for $400,000 in damages on Dec. 8 in Manhattan federal court.
“Police responded to a 911 call of an emotionally disturbed person at the location.”
Proof that the “If you see something, say something” campaign will work REALLY well. Because ordinary Joe Schmoe off the street won’t misconstrue some benign act as suspicious at ALL. Fine job there Janet Napolitano.
You see, if we all had a bit more common-sense, there would be less of this government gestapo stuff. AUUGH!
I live in a small town of 2400.
The Chief of police didnt LIKE one of his Subordinates.
FIRED HIM on the spot.
Our officers are on CONTRACT.
Unless he did something AGAINST his contract, he CANT be fired.
Sued the town, $500,000.. I figure thats about 10 years wages, for the person FIRED.
Cowboy cops over stepping their authority again. All should be fired and never again able to “serve/overstep” in a law enforcement capacity.
Assholes are just assholes, cop assholes are assholes with a gun! Yee-fucking-ha.
#11, all people who think like you should have two choices voted on them by everyone else:
1) you and ONLY everyone who thinks like you can have their taxes raised to pay the $400,000 plus expense
2) you and everyone who thinks like you should just disappear from the face of the earth
I vote for choice 2
“Are you about to commit suicide?” one cop asked.
“If I was going…yada yada yada
What if he had simply said no?
probably anyone smoking a cigarette should get counseling for suicidal tendencies ….
Cops aren’t trained in common sense. They’re trained to react, and see the law in such a narrow way that we are ALL in danger,all the time. This “zero tolerance” stuff is bullshit. It’s herd mentality.
Any sane person could see that 12 feet is hardly “suicide” distance. And, if asked “are you suicidal” and the response is “NO” then that should be the end of the resource investment.
But, he’s lucky he didn’t get shot. Our cops seem to be into lethal force, these days. I hope the lawyer wins his case. Won’t smarted up the cops, though. Too bad he can’t sue the guy who tackled him, and the one who made the decision to intervene.
Oh, and cops will NEVER do anything like actually “fight crime” because that means talking to people, and walking a beat, and getting to know the people they’re sworn to protect. That isn’t as cool as intimidating people, busting kids for pot, harassing drunks, and prostitutes, writing tickets (parking and otherwise) and general cock wagging and strutting that has come to be what cops are known for.
Everyone repeat after me: “Sieg Heil!”
Ah… suicide prevention. I remember the last time our local PD “prevented” a suicide. They shot and killed an unarmed man in the back of the head because he refused to speak to them.
#27–die and, surely a troll: what do you think would happen if any human being did a swan dive to concrete from 12 feet up?
Humans have been known to die falling from waist up to their desk surface 18 inches away.
Fragile thing this egg shell surrounding our brain.
#24, I am with #11, so go fuck yourself, asshole!
Local cops are dangerous motherf*ckers. Watch your ass. They have a lock on crime. They know it better than you do.
Example: Let’s say someone gets busted for having 10 pounds of heroin in their car. By the time it gets to trial the “perp” is charged with having one pound. Bad enough. Good for a long sentence. Where’s the other 9 pounds? Does the perp say to the judge, “Gee, I actually had 10 pounds”?
What do they do with it? If you don’t already know, you are either not an ex-con or you’ll just never know what I’m talking about.
Where do you guys get all these imaginary details and conjecture your head inserts into every story?
You don’t know this guy. You don’t know the cops.
One thing I do know …
“Some jerk cops get a hard-on and the citizen tax-payers are out $400,000.”
This crap has to stop. Who is our government to volunteer our money away. This lawyer is not entitled to your or my money and I don’t care that the cops inconvenienced this guy.
# 13 bobbo, “if suicide were not against the law”
Bobbo. Tch, tch, tch. Committing suicide is NOT against the law. Show me one case in all of history where the corpse of a suicide has been arrested, booked, sent to jail and tried for the crime. Just one. And I don’t even require a conviction. Just a trial.
Now there are various laws and ordinances that prohibit attempting or even threatening to attempt to off oneself.
#33-hmeyers You know why that the idiot lawyer couldn’t answer simple yes/no question with a simple yes/no answer don’t you?
He’s a lawyer.
He’s going to respond to any simple question with some verbiage-laden, billable clap-trap because he charges by the word.
He’s going to respond to any complicated question with enough bullshit to buy a Lexus.
It wouldn’t occur to him to respond any other way because he’s always on the clock.
This time, short attention span, GED carrying, bull-headed idiots were on a real clock and could back it with guns.
He should be thankful that they didn’t shoot him down off the window sill. Its happened before in the projects.
(One black Olympic athlete was gunned down by police in South Africa simply because he was running. No other reason. He was running. The cop who shot him said “He was running, so I shot him.” That’s the mentality you’re up against.)
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
A kudo is waiting for the first to identify the source of the quote.
@ brian “I’m always surprised at the over-reactions and violence they actually show on some episodes.”
This is how they train us to accept it as normal, it is called acclimatisation and it will make us all happy and submissive slaves.
kinda like how children are ‘trained’ and not ‘educated’ these days.
#36 – Your quote is from the Dec of Independence. One of my favorite bits.
#34–Animby==I accept your correction even while wondering if you would accept ecclesiastical courts of the 17th Century? They did some whacko stuff.
Of note, it was one of my heroes, St Augustine, who pushed for the illegality/sin of self killing. Seems you can’t repent if you kill yourself, that always cracked me up.
Now in California, even attempted suicide is not illegal–just grounds to held against your will on a medical hold. A distinction lost by many who are behind bars.
Bobbo – there is no way to top the idiocy of religion.
St Augustine? An old doctor once told me that he (I’m pretty sure it was Augustine) was the patron saint of bad eyes! My reaction then is pretty much the same as today: WTF?
I remember asking him who was the patron saint of undescended testicles because I figured that was one saint that could take a kick.