Tyeesha Mobley, a mother of two who lives in the Morrisiana neighborhood of the Bronx, has filed a lawsuit against the city, the NYPD and the Administration for Children’s Services, DNAinfo reports. The suit claims that she was wrongfully arrested by a racist officer and had her children taken away after she called the police to teach her 9-year-old son a lesson about stealing.
It’s a weird story: On April 16 of last year, Mobley called 9-1-1 after her son took $10 out of her purse, with the intention of having police come talk to the boy about why stealing is wrong. Four officers met Mobley and her two sons at a gas station. Three of the cops were playful and cooperative.
Then, the suit alleges, the fourth officer became abusive, and this happened:
“You black b—-es don’t know how to take care of your kids … you need to call the kids’ father, not us … we can’t raise your kids … why are you wasting our time, we aren’t here to raise your kid … why don’t you take your f—ing kid and leave?” the officer said, according to the lawsuit.
Mobley said at her preliminary hearing that when she tried to leave, the officer stopped her and told her he was arresting her. She also said that when she asked the officer why she was being arrested, he told her, “If you’re going to say another fucking word, I’m going to knock your teeth down your throat.”
The officer then handcuffed her, threw her against a squad car and kicked her legs, she recalled.
“All I was saying is, ‘Please stop, you’re hurting me, my kids is there,’” she said.
She added that her children were crying, saying, “Stop, you’re hurting mommy.”The officer’s actions even prompted a female colleague in a squad car to roll down her window and tell him, “We are not supposed to act like this,” the lawsuit says.
But the arresting officer responded to his female colleague by saying, “Black b—-es like that … this is how I treat them,” according to the suit.
Mobley was eventually charged with child endangerment and the boys were placed in foster care for four months, where the 4-year-old suffered a bad burn and the 9-year-old had repeated asthma attacks.
Mobley’s attorney, Philip Sporn, told DNAinfo that since the officers agreed to meet with Mobley and her children under the auspices of education, she should not have been arrested.
“They agreed to come,” he said. “It wasn’t like she hoodwinked anyone into coming.”
While it is perhaps inappropriate to call the police to come scare a child into behaving — and certainly a waste of resources to send four officers to deal with that child — there is no excuse for racism or excessive force from the NYPD. If these events happened as Mobley says they happened, this is yet another disturbing example of the NYPD’s contempt for and campaign of menace against the city’s citizens of color.
(Photo: Jason Lawrence)
