NYPD union may sue teen punched by cop in Harlem caught-on-camera clash
An NYPD union may sue the 19-year-old woman who tried to interfere with her boyfriend’s arrest in Harlem — and was slugged by a city cop as a result.
The Detectives Endowment Association is exploring a possible civil suit against Tamani Crum for slapping and shoving Detective Kendo Kinsey as Crum’s boyfriend was being taken into custody, the union’s president said Thursday.
“Criminals in New York have grown accustomed to there being no consequences for their dangerous, illegal actions,” DEA President Paul DiGiacomo said. “But when you assault a New York City detective in order to interfere with an arrest of a man armed with a gun there are repercussions.”
DiGiacomo noted that police initially charged Crum with assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest — but that Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s office knocked down the case against Crum to a misdemeanor count of obstructing governmental administration.
“That’s par for the course for Bragg,” DiGiacomo told the Daily News. “This was a tense and dangerous situation involving a person with a gun and (Crum) tried to get that gun from him. She should have been charged with assaulting a police officer and there were other charges the DA could have brought, like attempted weapons possession.”
DiGiacomo later appeared to walk back the allegation that Crum tried to grab the gun from James while cops were arresting him, noting she “could have” done so. The Manhattan DA’s office confirmed police did not charge her with attempting to do so.
“We bring charges based on the evidence and facts of the case. We are continuing to investigate this entire incident,” said Manhattan DA spokesman Doug Cohen.
Video posted to Twitter shows police officers arresting Crum’s boyfriend, Elvin James, on W. 136th St. near Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. just before 5 p.m. Tuesday. Crum appears in the frame and slaps at Kinsey — who responds by walloping her in the head during the wild caught-on-camera melee.
“You just hit a little girl!” one onlooker is heard screaming on the viral video. “You’re wilding, bro!”
Crum fell backward to the pavement before police picked her up.
Relatives said Crum was knocked unconscious and was dazed as cops took her into custody. The teen was treated at a hospital Wednesday for unspecified injuries from the knockout punch, said a liaison to the Rev. Al Sharpton.
As they took James into custody, cops say they recovered a handgun and a baggie with 20 Oxycodone pills. The 22-year-old was charged with resisting arrest and gun and drug possession and ordered held on $300,000 bail, records show.
James was initially sought for an Aug. 12 attempted murder case, but he has not been formally charged in that incident. Police did not immediately say why there were no charges in that incident, about which they have not released details.
As of Thursday, Kinsey hadn’t been disciplined for Tuesday’s clash. The incident was “under internal review,” an NYPD spokesman said. The department on Thursday released officers’ body cam footage of the incident.
At an appearance in Queens on Thursday morning, Mayor Adams said he believes police “showed great restraint” in the incident.
The mayor added that an investigation of the incident is ongoing.
“I take my hat off to those who apprehended the suspect, who showed great restraint, to do so without discharging their weapons, who followed the rules, and kept their video cameras on,” Adams said. “That’s why we know what happened there.”
Andrew Laufer, a civil rights attorney with more than 25 years of experience bringing excessive force cases against the NYPD, felt Det. Kinsey is the one the Manhattan DA should charge with assault.
“That’s felony assault. That’s gross what happened there. He already had control over her, he already pushed her away, and then he clocks her in the face,” said Laufer. “There was absolutely no legal justification for this officer to deploy that kind of force against her.”
With Molly Crane-Newman
