Stephen Kass, a 73-year-old
lawyer and grandfather of seven, was walking to his cello lesson one day last
September when cops arrested him. The charge? Talking to an Occupy Wall Street
Protester, a new federal lawsuit alleges.
Kass, an environmental lawyer
who works on Wall Street, ambled by Zuccotti Park on his way to the train Sept.
17, 2013, the second anniversary of Occupy. There, Kass says, he stopped to
look at a sign reading “Tax the Rich,” and tried striking up a conversation
with two protesters, one of whom was carrying the sign.
“I didn't think I was doing
anything in the slightest bit unusual,” Kass told Newsweek. “I thought I was being a reasonable,
responsible citizen. I was actually trying to find out what it was they were
advocating.”
During this brief chat, Police
Officer K. Ernst approached Kass and told him to move. Kass, who maintains he
was not blocking pedestrians on the sidewalk or vehicles in the road, declined.
Other officers joined Ernst and demanded Kass move. Then, Police Officer
Michael Alfieri grabbed Kass’ right arm “in two places,” the suit alleges. Kass
said “take your hands off me,” but Alfieri did not—instead, Alfieri and another
officer cuffed Kass.
They patted him down, searched
his shoulder bag, and “pushed” Kass into a police car at Liberty Street and
Broadway, and told him that he was being taken to Central Booking. A few
minutes later, two other officers told Kass that if he “stayed ‘quiet’ and did
not ‘cause any trouble’ he would simply be taken to the precinct and given a summons.’”
They indeed took Kass to the precinct, and then asked him whether he had ever
been arrested or detained, Kass said.
His reply: “I told them the
only time I had been detained was when I was as a member of a New York City Bar
Association delegation that went to Asuncion, Paraguay to investigate human
rights abuses by the police,” Kass said. “They did not respond to that.”
Kass received a summons, and he
complied, appearing in court twice, but the “officers failed to show up at
court,” according to the civil complaint. The case was dismissed.
A spokesperson for the NYPD
denied that Kass was arrested, stating in an e-mail to Newsweek that he was
issued a summons in lieu of an arrest.
"That’s absurd,"
Andrew Celli, a partner with Emery, Celli, Brinckerhoff + Abady LLP, who is
representing Kass, said in response to the NYPD's position. "He was
handcuffed, detained for over 90 minutes, transported to the precinct, and
required to appear in court several times.
It was an arrest and a prosecution.
If their lawyers argued in court that it wasn’t, they would be
sanctioned. Seriously."
Kass’ civil rights
lawsuit—which alleges false arrest, malicious prosecution, assault, and
battery—comes amid drastically increased scrutiny of NYPD tactics toward
protesters, accused quality-of-life offenders, and minorities.
Added Kass: "I bet that if
I were a younger person, or if I were a person of color, they would have been
even more aggressive or violent. I didn't say those things, but I certainly
thought them."
Celli said that their goal with
the suit is to educate police officers about protesters’ and observers rights.
“Unfortunately, cases like this
arise with depressing regularity,” Celli said. “It seems that in New York,
sometimes police don't understand that sidewalks and public spaces are for more
than transportation, but are places where people engage. When they don’t
understand that, people get arrested, and that’s what happened to Stephen
Kass.”’
The New York City Law
Department commented to Newsweek that: “We are reviewing the lawsuit.”
