Protesters arrested
Two women who are a part of a regular group that demonstrates on Monday evenings against police killings were arrested last Monday night outside the 13th Precinct, at 230 E. 21st St.
Kimberly Ortiz, 31, and Armenta Jeffry, 22, said police abruptly grabbed them and charged them with disorderly conduct and obstruction of vehicular traffic. They said they protested at the 13th Precinct since it’s near Union Square, where they initially gathered. The group is affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement.
Ortiz, who works for the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, said they plan to return to doing die-ins in the concourse at Grand Central Terminal once it gets colder.
At Monday’s protest they decried the death of Jeremy McDole, 28, a disabled, wheelchair-bound Delaware man who was killed by police last month. A video of the incident shows police repeatedly yelling “Hands up!” at McDole — who fails to comply and appears to be possibly reaching for something in his lap — before they shoot him multiple times.
Strap-on attack suit
The Daily News reported that police frisking a man at the Sixth Precinct stationhouse on W. 10th St. mocked him after discovering he was wearing a sex toy and repeatedly beat him after he talked back, a new lawsuit charges.
Michael Watson said in his federal court lawsuit the brutality began when he was arrested on Jan. 10, 2013, for pot possession.
At a bathroom at the Sixth, police told him to undress, papers say. He pulled down his underwear to reveal a sex toy “strapped to his waist by a Velcro belt,” the suit reads.
That led to three police beatings separated by three trips to Beth Israel Hospital, the suits says.
“We’ll review the specific allegations once we are served,” a Law Department spokesperson said.
Police did not respond to requests for comment.
Republic robbers
Employees of the Banana Republic store at 111 Eighth Ave., on W. 15th St., alleged that two men tried to steal $275 worth of merchandise on Wed., Oct. 14. The workers alerted police, who arrived at the store around 6:45 p.m. and arrested Midtown resident Frank Calauce, 43, and East Harlem resident Wesley Murphy, 36.
The two were charged with misdemeanor petit larceny.
Park punch
A punch to the face on Mon., Oct. 12, disrupted a 51-year-old Brooklyn man’s enjoyment of a bench in Hudson River Park near the northwest corner of Christopher and West Sts. Police said the victim suffered a cut lip with plenty of swelling.
The alleged attacker fled on food around 9:30 p.m. and did not appear to know the victim. Azariah Brundage of Queens was found nearby and arrested for misdemeanor assault.
Laptop squeeze
An employee of The Squeeze Juice in the Gansevoort Market building, at 52 Gansevoort St., figured he could settle a money dispute with his employee by taking a $1,400 Apple laptop on Mon., Oct. 12.
Police said Demitri Gaspard, 22, grabbed the laptop from the boss’s hands as they bickered around 5 p.m. Gaspard then left the place, but police soon caught up with him and recovered the computer. He was arrested and charged with felony grand larceny.
— Zach Williams and Lincoln Anderson
