Tag Archives: new york city

73 Year Old Woman Raped in Central Park

Justice

I mean, Central Park was never safe after dark but now the danger has creeped up in the middle of the day.  A 73 year old woman birdwatching off a path near Strawberry Fields was raped and robbed of her camera.  The sick part about it is that this was not the first encounter that she had with this gentleman.  Earlier in the week she spotted him in Central Park exposing himself.  She took a picture to show authorities and would not delete it after he told her to.  In retaliation to the photo bomb he found the 73 year old woman again in the park birdwatching.  The rapist asked an alarming question, “Do you remember me?” before proceeding to beat and sexually assault the woman.  Eric Ozawa found the woman and called the police after she informed him she had been raped.  The man that sexually assaulted the woman was identified as in his 40’s, white, with a Russian or Ukrainian accent.

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NYC Cop On His Own For Pepper Spraying

Lone police officer

Anthony Bologna, a man infamous among Occupy Wall Street protesters, who even warranted the nickname, Tony Baloney, is being sued for pepper spraying a crowd of protesters on September 24, 2011. Three women involved in the protest are filing the lawsuit as well as two additional protesters.  They claim that Anthony Bologna, a Deputy officer, violated their free speech and civil rights.  His actions were described as having “no legal reason,” and therefore the city of New York will not financially back Mr. Bologna for his actions regarding the protesters.  Instead the Captains Endowment Association, an organization that represents NYPD officers in the rankings of Captain, Deputy and Surgeon, will be covering Mr. Bologna’s lawsuit costs.  The Deputy was only docked 10 vacation days and given a departmental discipline which was an outrage to some who saw the viral video of the pepper spraying on YouTube.

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Middle Finger to the Law

Justice

“Cops keep firing in my environment / middle finger to the law.”  These immortal words from New York rapper Nas were most likely running through Robert Bell’s head on August 6, 2011, except there were no guns involved and Nas was nowhere to be seen.  Mr. Bell left the Slaughtered Lamb Pub in Greenwich Village, NY and decided to give three policemen a little piece of his mind.  He flipped them the bird and seconds later was arrested for disorderly conduct, obscene gesture, public alarm, and annoyance.  His stated reason for throwing the universal gesture was not only to insult the three personally, but also because he just does not like cops in general.  Robert Bell has filed a lawsuit against the city for violating his constitutional rights on what he believes is protected speech.  On top of that, he is suing for assault, false arrest, and, my favorite, emotional distress.

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An Eye for an Eye, but $20 Million Is Fine, Too

Off the court

There is a big difference between popping bottles and throwing bottles.  Just ask frenemies Chris Brown and Drake.  During the early morning hours of June 14, 2012, a fight broke out between the two music moguls at the über-trendy SoHo nightclub W.i.P (Work in Progress).  Theories abound about the impetus of the scuffle, with many news outlets sourcing it to Drake’s boasts about the affections of Rihanna, but one thing’s for certain: it got out of hand and some innocent celebrity bystanders were injured in the fallout.  San Antonio Spurs superstar Tony Parker found himself in the crossfire when the singers started lobbing bottles at each other.  A piece of glass lodged itself in Parker’s eye, an injury which brings his upcoming Olympic showing into question. Parker has brought a lawsuit against the owners of the club seeking damages to the tune of $20 million on the theory that the owners “should have known better” than to give Drake and Brown alcohol and sit them near each other.  Kind of like tossing a steak between two hungry dogs.

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NYC Transit Workers Allowed to Wear Religious Head Coverings

En route to better days

Fear is a powerful motivator, and as such the government sometimes responds poorly to the irrational fear of its citizens.  In 1942, due to a fear of all things Japanese during WWII, the federal government rounded up all the Japanese people they could, including native-born citizens, and placed them in destitute internment camps.  Before rounding up Jews and other minorities in concentration camps, the Nazis forced them to identify with yellow badges in the shape of a star, claiming that they were responsible for their country’s problems.  Through these events, we learned the hard way that fear and blame, however unfounded, can lead to atrocity.

Comparisons to such human rights abuses are a stretch in today’s case, of course, and perhaps somewhat unfair, and yet the parallels are striking.  After 9/11, the Metropolitan Transit Authority of New York City started enforcing a rule known as “brand or segregate”, in which Sikh and Muslim workers were forced to either mark their turbans with an MTA logo or work out of the sight of the general public.  See the similarities?  Fueled by xenophobic sentiment after the 9/11 tragedy, the MTA responded to American fear by taking steps to appease it: hide all the scary foreigners, or at least mark them so the good red-blooded Americans know to stay away.

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