An NYPD lieutenant who oversaw the arrest of a US postal worker this month has had his gun and badge taken as a result. The on-duty postal worker had claimed he was nearly hit by an unmarked police car when he shouted in frustration, prompting the arrest.
Lieutenant Luis Machado who supervising the plainclothes officers who then backed their squad car up, screamed at the postal worker, then demanded his ID before cuffing and arresting him.
As of Thursday, Machado was placed on modified duty over the arrest after being stripped of his badge and his gun, according to the New York Daily News.
The arrest of postal worker Glenn Grays, 27, took place on March 17 and was captured on several cameras, including a cell phone video that was circulated by the media. Grays was taken to the 71st Precinct station house in Brooklyn and charged with resisting arrest, leaving his mail truck double-parked and abandoned on a busy street.
A bystander’s video, which was released by Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, shows plainclothes officers coming up to Grays at the door of an apartment building and asking for ID before placing him under arrest.
“My ID right there on the side of the truck,” Mr. Grays says. One the officers responds, “Let’s go get your ID.”
“I’m not going nowhere. I’m delivering my postal route,” Mr. Grays is heard responding.
In the video, officers repeatedly tell Mr. Grays to stop resisting arrest, though he doesn’t appear to be resisting and can be heard shouting back, “I’m not resisting.”
Mr. Grays is then handcuffed, placed in a car and charged with disorderly conduct along with a criminal summons.
The incident has sparked an Internal Affairs Bureau investigation.
Grays has said he wants an apology from the Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, but while he also thinks the cops should be disciplined, he doesn’t think they should lose their jobs.
“Honestly, people have families. I don’t want them to take meals off kids’ plates,” Grays told the Wall Street Journal in an interview on Wednesday.
“We’re all human, we all make mistakes, but lately a lot of mistakes have been made by police officers,” Grays told the New York Daily News.
Bratton told reporters on Tuesday he had “strong concerns” about the officers’ actions.
“I am very interested in the charge that was made against this individual, what he was arrested for and the validity of that,” Bratton said. “Based on what I witnessed on the various videos I’ve reviewed I have strong concerns about the charge against that individual.”
Machado and his team, officers Lazo Lluka, Miguel Rodriguez and David Savella, have been pulled from the elite conditions unit they were assigned to, Bratton said.
Lou Turco, president of the Lieutenants Benevolent Association, said the union would defend Lt. Machado and “wait for all the facts to come out.”
Stop resisting arrest..even tho he clearly wasn’t…
Countless times dem sumin happen. All ah tell people stop guh fi dem gun an when u check di video, di people dem hand di eeda inna di air are pan di steering wheel….smh
Some ah dem police yuh si.. :marah :marah But thank God this had ah happy ending, cah some nuh come out ah it alive…
They all should loose they jobs I’m sick of them
It’s our natural ( black people) to have compassion, but for this postal worker to say he shouldn’t loose his job, I STRONGLY DISAGREE. This pig didn’t care if u lost yours, therefore you not being able to feed ur kids. If he wasn’t a postal officer/ delivering mail and was a “regular black man” the police commissioner was have let this been yet another incident that went by unnoticed and officers not being held responsible. Fvck em’…. Let them loose their jobs and pension. I’m sure this hasn’t been. Their first incident!!!! PIGS
I agree, he the office should loose his job. The officr didn’t care if the postal worker lost his job. This type of thing happens daily to black people, who are put through the system for no reason, resulting in their job loss in many cases. Some examples must be set, it is about time……let’s start here demand that the officers be fired.
Sometimes “killing” them with kindness is even too much.
Yes, this will help deter/stop other police officers from taking the pics. .. They will hopefully think twice now before keeping up uckry !!!
Fire dem raas, because if you don’t, they will do this to another innocent black or Hispanic man. No sorry fi dem
U shud have campaign fi dem get fyah cuz if camera neva ketch dem, dem wudda guh court guh lie pan yuh an u wudda loose ur job….a nuh mistake dem make a regula dem take set pan minorities
Lucky he have any concerns for them, after what they did to him, he is a good man, butbuf it wasn’t caught on video, he would have stayed charged. The video clear his but if there was no video he could have lost his job as a postal worker, and his kids meals would have been taken. But again he is a good man.
They all should loose their jobs and the man should be paid some type of monies for what he had to endure… I do not have any compassioning for those cops, they were trying to so call prove a point and being a a** about it that man did nothing, they almost hit the man and they have the nerves to arrest him and mistreat him like that, they are Spanish and his black it was plain disrespect and they must pay, they should of thought about their actions when they did what they did, and thought about how they going to feed their family then, just because they are cops they think they can do whatever they want to do and you wonder why something of them get killed they are corrupt and do not deserve no mercy, they can have ten lawyers the video says it all how you going to defend them and the video clearly shows their actions.. Good luck winning a case…