Wrong Apartment: NYPD Drags Naked Woman From Home Then Pepper Sprays 4-Year Old Grandson (Video)

The NYPD is yet again under fire, accused of dragging a naked asthmatic grandmother from her apartment then pepper-spraying her four-year old grandson in response to a 911 call — but they had the wrong apartment.

On Friday, the NYC coroner released the results of an autopsy on Eric Garner, the African-American married father who died during an arrest by New York City cops. The results? Gardner’s death was a homicide, a result of compression of his neck and chest — most say caused by arresting officers who used a chokehold to pin the 43-year old to the ground. Chokeholds are illegal and officers are specifically instructed to not use them. 

“Garner’s acute and chronic bronchial asthma, obesity and hypertensive cardiovascular disease were contributing factors, the medical examiner determined,” NBC New York adds.

Garner’s July 17 arrest was for the alleged crime of illegally selling cigarettes. His last words? “I can’t breathe.”

Three days before Eric Garner was killed, New York City Police officers responded to a 911 call which brought them to the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. Officers reportedly were not told the apartment number the call came from, and, according to news reports, at about 11:45 PM heard someone yelling in one apartment and knocked on the door.

Denise Stewart, wearing just a towel — she had just finished taking a shower — cracked open the door and that’s when the police barged in.

According to the NY Daily News, police dragged the 48-year old asthmatic grandmother into the hall, where her towel fell off. She was in full view of about a dozen male police officers and her neighbors, many of whom had come into the hall upon hearing the commotion.

“Yo, her mother got asthma …y’all wicked, y’all f—— wicked,” shouted one woman, the Daily News, which published a video recording the police actions, reports.

“Her asthma! Her asthma! Her asthma,” screamed another woman.

For approximately two minutes and 20 seconds, Stewart was bare-breasted in the hallway as additional police officers tramped up the stairs and through the hallway, glancing at her as they passed by.

When cops hauled Stewart’s two sons and two daughters out of the apartment and cuffed them, a female cop finally draped a white towel over Stewart’s exposed torso.

Reached at her home Friday, Stewart told the Daily News she was traumatized.

“It’s disgusting and embarrassing. I’ve been married 16 years. It took my husband 10 years to see my nakedness,” she said.

“I didn’t do nothing wrong,” she said, crying as she recounted the ordeal.

The Daily News adds that “Stewart’s 12-year-old daughter had ‘visible injuries’ to her face, cops said. She told officers her mother and older sister beat her with a belt, police said.”

But reportedly Amy Rameau, Stewart’s lawyer, says NYC child services found no evidence of neglect.

“There were no injuries to the child as alleged in the complaint,” the lawyer said.

Rameau also “said she was told by a Legal Aid attorney also assigned to the case that the 911 call came from a different apartment on an upper floor — and cops went to Stewart’s door by mistake.”

Cops removed the 12-year-old from the apartment and say she refused to get into the police car and kicked the door. A police spokesman said the child kicked out one of the police van’s windows, with the broken glass cutting the chin of one of the cops. The cops were treated at local hospitals and released.

Denise Stewart was charged with assaulting a police officer, and — along with her oldest daughter, Diamond Stewart, 20, — resisting arrest, acting in a manner injurious to a child and criminal possession of a weapon.

Stewart’s son Kirkland Stewart, 24, was charged with resisting arrest. The 12-year-old was charged with assaulting a police officer, criminal mischief and criminal possession of a weapon.

Diamond Stewart’s 4-year-old son was also pepper sprayed, the family said.

Here’s the video:

In New York, pepper spray can only be sold to consumers by a pharmacy or a licensed firearms dealer. 

New York City Police are no strangers to pepper spraying children — even, allegedly, those as young as five-months old.

 

Image by Nick Allen via Flickr