The NYPD are not known for giving out frivolous tickets or making frivolous arrests, unless you happen to be reading the bible in a playground after dark or eating doughnuts in a playground unaccompanied by a child. So it may shock you to hear of another case in which the NYPD aggressively arrested a suspect who, it turned out, had committed absolutely no crime: “I was under the impression that it was very illegal to walk up the hill,” said tourist Aaron Vansintjan about his frustrating experience.

Vansintjan, a 21-year-old student at McGill University, was visiting the city during Christmas week with his family when he ended up arrested at gunpoint by cops. Vansintjan tells Jim Dwyer of the NY Times that he was taken to the 34th precinct where he was accused of committing a crime—that never actually happened—and held for hours. It all started when he was on his way to meet friends at the Cloisters, and he got to the A train stop nearest the museum at 190th Street.

Carrying a Macy’s shopping bag with two white shirts he had just bought, and two books from his school’s library, Vansintjan ended up at an exit which led to Bennett Avenue, along the base of a cliff at the bottom of the park. He began to climb up the hill: “I was catching my breath for about 15 seconds. Someone ran at me with a gun drawn, screamed at me to get down to the ground, pushed me onto my knees, and then put my face in the ground.”

Vansintjan said, “they told me someone had reported the theft of a Macy’s bag.” His hands were squeezed into handcuffs, and police suggested that he had tried to resist arrest (he is 5 feet 10 and weighs 130 pounds). He was taken to the precinct and grilled by officers: “A detective asked me to tell my side of things, and said, ‘If you are honest, we will be easier on you’,” Vansintjan said. He added that he was not told of his right to a lawyer, or to remain silent.

It turned out that police had received a report of a burglary in an apartment across Bennett Avenue just before Vansintjan got off the subway. “[The victim] pointed to an individual running up a hill in Fort Tryon Park and identified him as one of the intruders,” explained police spokesman Paul J. Browne. But while Vansintjan's interrogation was going on, the man who reported the burglary told the police that there had been no break-in, and that people were out to get him. He was taken to a psychiatric hospital.

Vansintjan, who was kept in a holding cell with ten non-white people—all of whom were there on pot charges—believes that “If I weren’t white,” he might have been held overnight. Just before he was released, a sergeant told him that an antique pocketknife he had been carrying “was a problem,” which Vansintjan said he knew wasn't true: “He said they were going to give me a break, so it wouldn’t go on my record, and let me go.”

Back in November, Dwyer reported on a 21-year-old female student who was arrested and held by NYPD for 36 hours for not carrying ID. It was later revealed that her arrest was blamed on blowback from the ticket-fixing scandal. “No one wanted to get involved in making a change where a summons was involved because of everything going on in the Bronx. She fell victim to it. That’s what I am being told," explained Ed Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association. Will that excuse be used to justify this aggressive overreaction as well?