NYPD Clears Cop Who Pepper-Sprayed A BK State Senator: Pol

CROWN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN ? An NYPD judge cleared the cop who pepper-sprayed state Sen. Zellnor Myrie during a 2020 George Floyd protest of wrongdoing.

Myrie was not happy.

"This ruling is EXACTLY why New Yorkers have zero faith in the system," Myrie wrote Thursday in a tweet announcing that the officer charged with threatening to pepper spray him during the protest was "not guilty of any misconduct."

Neither the CCRB nor the NYPD were able to reply to a request for comment by publication.

The misconduct case is one of hundreds that NYPD officers faced from the George Floyd protests. Many, including this one, stemmed from the evening of May 29, 2020, when police and protesters clashed near Barclays Center and chaos spilled into the surrounding streets.

Myrie and then-Assembly Member Diana Richardson, with whom he's now engaged, said NYPD cops at the protest rammed them and doused them in pepper spray ? despite both identifying themselves as elected officials and engaging in only peaceful protest, according to reports and a separate federal suit filed by the pair.

As you may know, on 5/29/2020, I was pepper-sprayed & arrested while attending a protest at the Barclays Center.

I am currently suing the NYPD in federal court around this event, but concurrently, a CCRB complaint was filed (not by me) and the process just concluded.

?: 1/17
? Senator Zellnor Y. Myrie ?? (@zellnor4ny) January 26, 2023

Civilian Complaint Review Board members later substantiated misconduct complaints against two officers involved in the incident, according to the federal suit.

This led to a CCRB trial for potential discipline that, in Myrie's telling, resulted in a judge clearing at least one cop.

Myrie notes that the judge who ruled on the NYPD complaint, which he notes was not filed by him, is a deputy commissioner of the NYPD and determined that not only did the charged officer not commit any misconduct, but that his behavior was "a reasonable action."

NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell has the final say in dishing out internal police discipline, and Myrie said Sewell agreed with the judge's decision, despite acknowledging the officer's behavior as reviewed in body camera footage in the trial.

"Why would any person in this city have faith in a system that can allow a public official to be assaulted by law enforcement with no consequence?" Myrie wrote. "What am I supposed to tell my constituents? Just trust me?"

Myrie's lawyer in his federal lawsuit, Sean Hecker, said that he was dissapointed but not surprised that the CCRB process failed the Senator.

"The CCRB?s 'trial' was nothing more than a decision by an NYPD-employed commissioner?a bizarre, self-interested system that confirms the importance of federal courts as a forum in which to protect constitutional rights against police misconduct," Hecker said. " We look forward to proving in federal court that the NYPD violated Senator Myrie?s rights and to insisting upon accountability for that injustice."

Patch couldn't confirm the identity of the cop involved in the judge's decision.

Federal court files name two officers who had been recommended for discipline by CCRB watchdogs.

Officer Jessica Clinton, who is also a named party in the federal suit, was given a less severe command discipline, losing up to five vacation days for a physical force violation.

Another officer, Michael Kovalik, also named in Myrie's suit, also had two more serious substantiated threat of force complaints, according to the CCRB.

These complaints were found to be more serious, and went to an administrative trial last June. Kovalik told the judge that he was not the officer who pepper-sprayed Myrie and Richardson, according to Gothamist.

Officer Kovalik has been with the NYPD since 2009, according to 50-a.org, and, in addition to Myrie's current lawsuit, settled two other lawsuits in 2015 and 2019 for a total of $130,000.

"What happened to me pales in comparison to what has happened ? and continues to happen ? to so many others," Myrie wrote on Twitter yesterday. "'Bad apples' do not rot in isolation; they are allowed to pervade the batch by the barrel they are in. Our system is rotten. We have to keep fighting."