A Black man from Brooklyn is suing New York City for $100 million after being brutally beaten by narcotic officers who mistook him for a suspect.
Lawyers for 46-year-old Timothy Brown filed the suit against the city on Tuesday (April 28), two weeks following an incident in which officers violently confronted Brown in a local liquor store, according to The New York Post.
The encounter, which occurred on April 14, was caught on camera and quickly went viral across social media. It shows the officers holding and violently beating Brown in the back of the store, punching, kicking, and dragging him across the ground, knocking over bottles and other items in the process.
“I was brutally beaten for no reason,” Brown told the outlet. “What happened to me should never happen to anyone else — it was wrong, it was disgusting, my life will never be the same,” Brown said.
Derek Sells, Brown’s lawyer, said that the job of the NYPD is to serve and protect, but that “the only thing that they served was a beat-down to Mr. Brown.” The goal of the lawsuit is to hold the officers directly involved accountable.
“We want to take everything from those police officers, just like they took the dignity away from Mr. Brown,” Sells said.
According to CBS New York, the Police Department claimed the officers were searching for a drug dealer's associate who they were told was wearing green shorts. When they spotted Brown and saw that he matched that description, they followed him into the store and attempted to arrest him.
While Brown was not charged with a drug offense, he was charged with resisting arrest. He told the outlet that he had just gotten off work and was at the shop buying a bottle of wine when the officers approached him.
"He said, 'You're under arrest,'" Brown said. "I remember being grabbed and shoved and he said, 'Don't resist.' And I say, 'I'm not resisting.'
NYC Mayor Mamdani and Police Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch were quick to respond to the incident once the video went viral.
“The violence used by NYPD officers in this video is extremely disturbing and unacceptable. Officers should never treat a person this way. The NYPD is conducting a full investigation into this incident,” Mamdani posted to X on April 15.
Tisch also called the video “deeply disturbing” in a statement on X the same day. She confirmed the officers were placed on modified duty and that their guns and shields had been taken away.
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