NYPD Officers Who Arrested Black Brooklyn Mailman Still on Active Duty

CROWN HEIGHTS BROOKLYN — The four plainclothes officers who arrested on-duty postman Glenn Grays this month weren't supposed to be out of uniform, and have been removed from their specialized unit pending the conclusion of a department investigation, NYC Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said Monday.

However, in a followup interview with an NYPD spokesperson, Patch learned that although the officers have been reassigned, they remain on active duty.

Bratton, who heads the NYPD, said he watched the widely circulated cellphone video of the incident — as well as "other videos that give a much larger and clearer interpretation of what occurred there."

"I am not pleased with what I saw, the actions of our officers," Bratton said.

The commissioner said he now has "several very significant concerns" about Grays' arrest, including the fact that the officers, who belonged to a specialized "conditions team," were not permitted to be in plainclothes.

"Pending the Internal Affairs investigation, which is going forward, those officers have been taken out of any of those specialized assignments," Bratton said.

Grays, 27, an employee of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), was delivering packages in Crown Heights on March 17 when he was almost struck by an unmarked police vehicle, according to an account of the incident provided last week by Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams.

Grays "made comments, as any New Yorker would do,” Adams said, after which the officers in the vehicle — including a lieutenant — got out of the car and surrounded him.

One officer demanded to see his identification. When Grays didn't comply, he was arrested.

Meanwhile, Grays' USPS truck was left idling on President Street.

“I’m very concerned that a U.S. postal truck was left unsecured, double-parked on a major thoroughfare in the city of New York,” Bratton said Tuesday, according to DNAinfo.

A video of the arrest was recorded by a bystander and first shared publicly by Adams, who called for the officers to be prevented from operating out of uniform until an investigation was conducted.

Adams said the arrest was unjustified, racially motivated, and “could have been another Eric Garner situation."

In a recent interview with CBS, Grays said: "The only thing that I think saved me is because [the arrest] was on videotape."

"I was extremely terrified," he said. "I was afraid that if I didn't comply, that something was going to happen to me."

Grays also told CBS that as he was being driven away from the scene in the officers' vehicle, the car rear-ended another driver. Grays said he flew forward from the car's backseat, striking his face and left shoulder on the seat in front of him.

He said he wanted "disciplinary action" to be taken against the officers, but didn't call for them to be fired.

"I don't want them to be jobless, because they might have family [and] kids they need to support," he said.