Homeless Man Charged After Cop Hurt Hand Punching Him In Face

MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, NY — Lawyers with the Legal Aid Society are calling on the NYPD to fire a police officer who punched a man several times after he refused to exit a train stopped in a Midtown subway station in May.

The Legal Aid Society's client, identified as a 30-year-old man named Joseph, is facing assault charges because officer Adonis Long hurt his hand while striking him in the face, defense attorneys said. Body camera footage released by the public defense group contradicts the NYPD's criminal complaint, which alleges Joseph "kicked" the officer's hand.

Public defenders are also calling for the firing of officer Shimul Saha, who wrote the criminal complaint and was present during the arrest.

Joseph was asked by officers Long and Saha to exit a train in the East 51st Street and Lexington Avenue subway stations shortly after midnight on May 25 because the rider was "occupying more than one seat on the train," according to Saha's criminal complaint. Saha writes that the man began "flailing his arms and kicking his legs" while Saha and Long attempted to drag him off the train.

Officer Saha writes in the complaint that Long told him he was kicked in the right hand, causing "swelling" to the knuckles that required hospitalization and prevents Long from opening and closing his hand without pain.

THE CITY, which first reported the incident, said Thursday that the DA's office is planning to drop the assault charges.

Footage captured on the NYPD officer's body camera, and released this week by the Legal Aid Society, does not reflect Saha's account. The footage begins with Joseph being asked to leave the train for no specified reason. When the train arrives at the East 51st Street station, Joseph exits the car and re-enters in an adjacent one. He's then followed by police, who again order him off the train and tell him he is delaying the train.

When officer Long grabs Joseph, the man brushes his hand off and tells the officer "don't touch me." After a second brush-off, Long punches Joseph in the face twice and yells at him to "get off the f---ing" train." Police officers surround the man, throwing him to the ground on the trian platform and detaining him against a wall, according to the body camera footage.

Long is seen kicking Joseph's belongings on the ground of the train platform as the man asks "why are you f---ing hitting me?" When Joseph doesn't immediately follow orders to "sit down" Long sprays him in the face with mace, according to the body camera footage.

For the remaining three minutes of the body camera footage Joseph is handcuffed as he yells in pain, tells officers he is having a panic attack and is having trouble breathing, pleads with officers and screams for help.

NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said that "a punch should not be assumed to be excessive force," in a public statement about three weeks before Joseph's arrest. At the time of the statement, Shea was responding to questions about a violent East Village social distancing arrest that resulted in discipline for the officers involved.

Joseph told the publication THE CITY that he didn't understand why cops were telling him to get off the train. Joseph was held on the platform for twenty minutes before being handed off to EMS and taken to the hospital, according to the report.

Joseph was initially charged with resisting arrest, but the Manhattan DA's office later added on the charge of second-degree assault — a felony punishable by up to seven years in prison.

"The brutal attack on Joseph by these officers is both unconscionable and completely indefensible. The body worn camera footage speaks for itself: these officers singled out our client for taking up two seats on a virtually empty subway car and then resorted to violence as their first impulse," Legal Aid Staff Attorney Edda Ness said in a statement.

Ness added: "It's equally shocking that the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, despite seeing this video, chose to bump up the charges against our client. We are calling on them to dismiss these charges immediately in the interest of justice."

The body camera footage is included below. Some may find it disturbing: