As immigrant Emzo Yildiz recovers from the two black eyes given to him by off-duty officer Anthony Egan, more details are coming out about the fight that left Yildiz charged with felony assault—though he says he never threw a punch. Egan says Yildiz charged him during a traffic jam as the two were merging on Targee Street in Staten Island, and that he only punched Yildiz in self defense after he said he was a cop. But Yildiz claims Egan never identified himself, and that "The guy's using the f-word and then he showed me the finger, doing the whole thing, jumping and yelling and going crazy." WABC asks, "Is the officer getting preferential treatment?" Now what would give them that idea?
Egan did walk away with a cut to the back of his head and an abrasion on his eye, but Yildiz suffered two black eyes and had to get stitches on his eyebrow. He also claims at least 10 officers from Egan's precinct showed up to arrest him, and that he was left bleeding at the 120th precinct for over two hours before he was taken to a hospital. Witness Cliff Browning said, "All of those guys—none of 'em deserve to wear their badge, if they're gonna cover something like that up." Yildiz, who became a U.S. citizen three weeks ago after 15 years in the country, faces up to seven years in prison.
