Chaumtoli Huq
A human rights lawyer who was
formerly the top attorney for Public Advocate Tish James was arrested for
blocking the sidewalk following a pro-Palestinian rally in Times Square while
waiting for her children to use the bathroom.
Chaumtoli Huq, 42, was standing
outside of Ruby Tuesday on July 19th when her husband and children went into
the restaurant to use the restroom. Police officers told her to keep moving
down the sidewalk.
"I'm not in anybody's way.
Why do I have to move? What's the problem?" Huq told police, according to
the criminal complaint obtained by DNAinfo.
Police officer Ryan Lathrop and
his partner then pinned her against a wall and arrested her.
“At that point I didn’t know
what was happening. I was just thinking, ‘What’s going on?’ and all of a sudden
the officer flips me [around]…he [turns] my body and presses me against the
wall of the restaurant,” Huq told DNAinfo. “He shoved my left arm all the way
and kept pushing it and handcuffed me. At that point I just like instinctively
yelled, ‘Help!’ because I was alone. I screamed, ‘Help!’"
In her lawsuit filed Tuesday in
Manhattan Federal Court, Huq claims the NYPD acted with “unreasonable and
wholly unprovoked force” and that their behavior was “characteristic of a
pattern and practice of the NYPD in aggressive overpolicing of people of color
and persons lawfully exercising their First Amendment rights.”
Huq, who is Muslim, says the
officers searched through her purse without probable cause, and took her to the
precinct before her husband and children had even returned from the restaurant.
When her husband went to go find his wife at the Midtown South Precinct,
officers became suspicious of him because he had a last name different than his
wife's. "In America wives take the names of their husbands,” an officer
allegedly told Huq.
Huq was charged with
obstructing governmental administration, resisting arrest and disorderly
conduct, and took an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal to the charges.
The day before her arrest, Huq
had taken a leave of absence from the Public Advocate's office so she could
focus her attention on human rights abuses against garment workers in her
native Bangladesh.
“I was hesitant to bring a
case. My job is to be behind the scenes, and help all New Yorkers,” she told
the Daily News. But, upon reflection, she decided she could use her experience
to "raise awareness about overpolicing in communities of color. I want
there to be a dialogue on policing and community relations."
