Believing that New York resident Marilyn Taylor jumped a subway fare, Taylor says three New York Police Department (NYPD) officers sprayed her family, including her three young children with pepper spray, after stopping her for suspicion of skipping a fare.
“The pepper spray caused the children to scream out and choked the 2-year-old, who went into fits of vomiting,” states a complaint Taylor filed, accusing Officers Maripily Clase, Suranjit Dey and Jermaine Hodge for overreacting when they saw her push her stroller through a service entrance while trying to board a New York City subway train on Aug. 9, 2012, instead of going through the turnstile.
Taylor says she was pushing a stroller with her 2-year-old inside and was holding her 4-year-old’s hand and was unable to go through the turnstyle.
“The aggressiveness of the officers’ demeanors had upset the 4-year-old daughter, and her mother bent down to console her and tell her, ‘everything will be OK,” the complaint states.
That’s when Taylor says Officer Dey pepper-sprayed her, causing her to fall to her knees, nearly falling from the platform. The complaint also says the officers pepper-sprayed the three children: a 4-year-old child, 2-year-old child and a 5-month-old baby.
Taylor was then placed in handcuffs, “as the minor children cried in fear and pain.”
The children’s father, Dehaven McClain, was sprayed as well, and tried to shield the 5-month-old from the spray by holding the baby close to his chest. Since Taylor was handcuffed and being taken to the police station, McClain was left with the children, who were screaming and crying, and had to get them home safely alone.
Taylor reported that she was arraigned the next day and was told that the charges against her would be dropped if she did not get arrested again within a certain time frame, but her biggest concern was that her children needed medical attention due to lingering effects of the spray.
After the attack, Taylor and McClain suffered ongoing eye injuries and all three children suffered emotional harms, and are still afraid to ride the subways and are afraid when they see police officers. The 4-year-old cried herself to sleep for weeks, and after the incident the 2-year-old began waking up in the night crying for her mother.
Since the incident, Taylor says the officers have harassed her family, and says the officers have forced her family to avoid using the subway through the Atlantic Avenue stop.
Taylor and her family are now seeking punitive damages for civil rights violations, assault, battery, negligence and violations to the state and federal constitutions. She has also sued New York City, the NYPD and all three officers in Federal Court for herself, her three children and McClain.
While Taylor’s story is heartbreaking, it’s not necessarily an uncommon one in New York. In mid-March, the NYPD was expected to set a record by having its 5 millionth stop-and-frisk encounter under New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
“This disturbing milestone is a slap in the face to New Yorkers who cherish the right to walk down the street without being interrogated or even thrown up against the wall by the police,” said NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman.
“The NYPD’s routine abuse of stop-and-frisks is a tremendous waste of police resources, it sows mistrust between officers and the communities they serve and it routinely violates fundamental rights. A walk to the subway, corner deli or school should not carry the assumption that you will be confronted by police, but that’s the disturbing reality for young men of color in New York City.”
The controversial policy has been under review recently, after an NYPD whistleblower testified officers were given quotas for how many stop-and-frisk arrests they were to make. NYPD policy states an officer is permitted to stop an individual if there is suspicion they are committing a crime, but statistics show only 6 percent of all stops led to an arrest.