(MintPress) – Earlier in the week, the New York Post released cell phone video it had obtained from a person who wished to remain anonymous that showed New York Police Department (NYPD) officer Lesly Charles condoning the suspect’s behavior with a vulgar tirade that included Charles threatening to rape the suspect with his gun. The video was taken by one of the suspects whom Charles was interacting with.
The incident unfolded near the No. 1 Chinese Food restaurant in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. The NYPD responded to an illegally parked car outside the restaurant. An unidentified source in the New York Post story said the men were often called on for complaints pertaining to loud music and loitering. The source said that “all efforts at civility failed’’ in the past.
The report said Charles “berated” the men in the street near the car for some time, at which point the suspects entered the restaurant, followed by Charles and two plainclothes NYPD officers.
At that point, the video captures an obscenity-laced verbal exchange between Charles and the suspects. The Huffington Post provided a partial transcript of the event, which is sometimes difficult to decipher in the video:
“You guys are hustling or whatever, I ain’t got no problem with that. Listen … do your thing. But when I come around and I speak, you f**king listen. Tell your boys…”
“I have the long d**k. You don’t. Your pretty face – I like it very much. My d**k will go in your mouth and come out your ear. Don’t f**k with me. All right?..”
“I’ll take my gun and put it up your a— and then I’ll call your mother afterwards. You understand that?..”
“And I’ll put your s**t in your own mouth…”
“I’m here every f**king day. I don’t go home. I have no life. No kids. I do what I do.”
Later in the video, despite not telling the suspects what they were accused of, police refused to allow them to leave the restaurant.
David Zelman, who is the attorney for two of the men, told CBS News that the men were eventually arrested away from the restaurant for disorderly conduct and released the next day.
The men have filed a complaint with the civilian review board, according to a police department spokesperson who spoke with CBS News.
“Disorderly conduct” has become something of a catch-all type of crime,” Zelman said. “I think it’s indicative of an overall bigger problem with the NYPD – that there’s really a lack of respect for individuals, their rights and there’s a feeling within the NYPD that, hey ‘We can do what we want. We run the streets.’”
When pressed for a comment from the New York Post, Charles was brief and did not address the issue.
“I’m just doing God’s work. You know I can’t comment … Have a blessed day,” Charles said.
The NYPD has been under the spotlight for controversial practices within the past year that includes planting drugs on innocent victims, police brutality against members of the Occupy Wall Street movement and racial profiling.
“The morale in the whole department is in the crapper,” an anonymous veteran Bronx cop told the Daily News.