“The juveniles became loud and disorderly, and were asked to leave,” said a spokesman for the NYPD. The situation between the Gorden women and the police escalated. Elizabeth Gorden ended up with a broken hip and a desk appearance summons to go to court on Aug. 31 for the charge of obstructing governmental administration.
Casilda Roper-Simpson, who is representing the family with the law office of Roy & Roper, said that they are suing the police.
Emmanuel Roy, also an attorney for the family, said, “We are demanding a full report of what happened, because you have a 71-year-old grandmother who is a citizen, who went to the Police Department to report that her grandchildren had been attacked. Instead of the police taking a report, they turn around and assault this grandmother. Now we have a frail woman, 71 years old, who is now in the hospital awaiting surgery.”
The police have a different version, saying they are not the ones who did the assaulting. An NYPD spokesman said Gorden had been having an altercation with the captain of the precinct and then attempted to hit him. “The female, 71, takes a swing at him and misses,” said the spokesman “and falls down.” The NYPD said the injuries Gorden sustained were the result of a fall caused by her failed attempt to punch the police officer.
“No, no, absolutely not. Had she taken a swing at a captain, she would have been arrested, charged, and put through central booking,” said Marquez Claxton, an organizer of a press conference on Monday afternoon that called for an investigation into Gorden’s injury. Claxton, who is running for City Council in District 31 this year, is a co-founder of the advocacy group 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, and was a member of the NYPD for 20 years. Showing a digital photograph of bruises on Gorden’s arm on his camera, Claxton said the injuries clearly show “there was a level of contact that was excessive and unnecessary.”
“Police officers on the scene that night charged Ms. Gorden with obstructing governmental administration, and that charge in no way justifies the level of force that they used against her, or explains the nature of these injuries that she sustained,” he said.
“It’s absolutely a bogus charge” said Roy, one of Gorden’s attorneys. “I mean, what did she do, did she stand in front of the door and say ‘Nobody can come in, you guys can’t work?’”
Speaking on the sidewalk outside Jamaica Hospital, where Gorden was awaiting surgery, Claxton denied that Gorden had attacked any police officer. “There is no question about it: had she taken a swing at a police officer, or God forbid, the captain, she would not have even qualified to be issued a desk appearance ticket,” he said. “The charge by the Police Department speaks for itself: obstructing governmental administration. There is no assault charge, there is no resisting arrest charge, there are no other charges.”
The Police Department spokesman said that for attempting to assault a police officer Gorden “should have been put through the system,” but was issued a desk appearance and the obstruction charge instead.
“If that’s what the captain says, then there should have been some documentation to present that,” said Claxton. “You don’t decide ‘Ha, that crime applies, but I’ll charge this crime.’ That is a major infraction of Police Department policy. So charge what it is, not what you want to manipulate it to be.”
He added, “If they wanted to charge something else, if there was some other infraction or criminality committed, they had an obligation as sworn law enforcement to document that, and they did not do that.”
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