The lawyer representing a Black New Yorker who alleges the use of excessive force during her 2020 arrest by police is drawing parallels between her case and the tragic circumstances surrounding George Floyd’s death.
The attorney has filed a civil claim pressing the city of New York, the New York Police Department, and nine of its officers for a “six figures” payout, citing lingering damages from the ordeal.
Five of the cops are named in the complaint. Four are not because their identities “are presently unknown.”
The legal complaint outlines 15 distinct accusations against the defendants, encompassing charges such as wrongful arrest and the disproportionate application of force.
Like Floyd, the Minneapolis man whose death sparked a summer of civil unrest, officers are filmed kneeling on Christine Greaves’ back, as she reportedly exclaims, “I can’t breathe” three times.
Attorney Ugochukwu Uzoh filed the lawsuit on behalf of the 23-year-old in the Eastern District of New York after her arrest on May 2, 2020. The young woman was attending a gathering following a funeral in Brooklyn and reportedly was violating the city’s COVID-19 lockdown mandates.
According to the complaint, Greaves was arrested that evening “simply because she is Black.” The NYPD says she was arrested for “obstructing governmental administration in the second degree” and “disorderly conduct,” charges connected to COVID restrictions.
It further claimed that officers were particularly violent while detaining her, “punching, kicking, cursing, screaming, and yelling at her” before hauling her off to the 77th Precinct, where her suit says she was made to participate in an “illegal and unlawful search” which yielded no contraband.
Uzoh released a video to the press, and it shows the young lady yelling, “I can’t breathe,” and someone blasting the officers, repeatedly saying, “Get your knee off her back.”
“It’s…
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