The 84-year-old man who needed four staples to his head after the NYPD violently arrested him during a jaywalking stop on the Upper West Side last weekend is suing the city for $5 million.
Kang Wong told the Daily News that he was crossing with the light on West 96th and Broadway that afternoon but admits that the light may have turned red by the time he reached the other side of the street. Wong, who speaks Cantonese and Spanish, said he understood the officer's order to display his ID, but was confused when the officer walked away with it.
“I was very puzzled and I was very scared. I had no idea why I had been stopped. I used Cantonese and said give me back my ID," Wong told the News through a translator.
The cop declined. Other officers arrived, and Wong says, "I got more scared." He claims he was pushed to the ground and knocked unconscious. When he came to, he was in handcuffs and his head was bleeding. Wong, who lives a block from where he was arrested, was charged with jaywalking, resisting arrest, obstructing governmental administration and disorderly conduct.
“I didn't commit any crime…They make me feel shame. I was very humiliated.”
When asked about the incident, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton told reporters, “I’m not aware of excessive force in that at all. It was an unfortunate circumstance."
The stepped-up jaywalking enforcement came after a string of pedestrian fatalities in the area. On that Sunday, police ticketed twice as many pedestrians for jaywalking as they did drivers for moving violations.
Though he called the ticketing a "precinct-level" decision, Bratton has previously shown enthusiasm for increased pedestrian enforcement, while Mayor de Blasio has denied that ticketing pedestrians is part of his sweeping initiative to lower pedestrian fatalities and make the streets safer.
Wong, who came to New York from China by way of Cuba in 1966, used to own La Nueva Victoria Restaurant on 95th and Broadway. “I always respected the police. The officer and detectives from the precinct used to come into my restaurant all the time.”'
His family has retained the high profile plaintiffs attorney Sanford Rubenstein. In Fiscal Year 2012, the city paid $151.9 million to settle cases involving the NYPD; in 2011 it was $185.6 million.
