The image in the cell phone video is difficult to make out. Recorded at around 11 p.m. one night last month, it shows at least three NYPD officers making an arrest in front of a shuttered hair salon after responding to a noise complaint in Flatbush, Brooklyn. What happened next has raised questions about how New York City police officers use force when a child is in harm’s way and how the city’s child welfare agency intervenes in child custody cases when a parent is arrested.
John Guerra said he was standing on Woodruff Avenue on April 24 with his 20-month-old son and other adults and children from the neighborhood when officers responded to what the NYPD later reported was a 311 noise complaint. The song on the stereo, according to Guerra and two witnesses, was “Baby Shark.”
“It was a baby song,” he told Gothamist.
A police complaint alleges Guerra’s friend, Latisha Maldonado, refused to turn over her audio speaker. When they went to arrest her, Guerra can be seen in the phone video approaching the police while holding his son, yelling at them to stop.
“You’re doing too much, bro,” Guerra can be heard saying. Officers later alleged that Guerra said, “I’ll break your shit, pussy,”
Then, the video shows that one of the officers turns and pushes Guerra twice, sending him and the child backwards. Additional footage obtained by Gothamist from the hair salon’s security camera shows five officers then tussling with Guerra. He said the officers later pushed him and the toddler against the metal grating on the business next door. Guerra says the officers kicked him repeatedly before his son was eventually taken from him by police. Guerra was also arrested.
John Guerra and his son.
Courtesy of John Guerra
Guerra’s attorney Omar Russo filed a motion on May 3 claiming that Guerra was falsely arrested and subjected to excessive force.
“Officers physically engaged claimant [Guerra], with no regard for the fact that his small child was in his arms. The…
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