When Kang Wong got stopped by a NY cop for jaywalking, he did not understand the cop’s orders and ended up bloodied in a hospital
It’s hard for me to fathom why a very old man who does not speak English ends up bloodied in the hospital because he could not understand an officer’s orders in a jaywalking violation and tried to walk away.
You would think that NY’s new mayor Bill De Blasio, champion of the downtrodden masses, would have been outraged over cops beating up an 84-year-old Asian man for a traffic violation, but all that came out of his office was that because there have been too many traffic deaths, zero tolerance would be enforced against violators.
COPS BLOODY OLD MAN – FOR JAYWALKING
By Kevin Sheehan
New York Post
January 19, 2013
Cops bloodied an 84-year-old man and put him in the hospital Sunday when he jaywalked at an Upper West Side intersection and didn’t appear to understand their orders to stop, witnesses said.
Kang Wong was strolling north on Broadway and crossing 96th Street at around 5 p.m., when an officer told him to halt because he had walked against the light.
Police were targeting jaywalkers in the area following the third pedestrian fatality this month around West 96th Street.
Wong, who lives a block away, appeared to not understand the cop, the witnesses said.
“The guy didn’t seem to speak English. The cop walked him over to the Citibank” near the northeast corner of 96th and Broadway, said one witness, Ian King, a Fordham University law student.
“[The officer] stood him up against the wall and was trying to write him a ticket. The man didn’t seem to understand, and he started walking away.
“The cop tried to pull him back, and that’s when he began to struggle with the cop,” said King, 24. “As soon as he pushed the cop, it was like cops started running in from everywhere.”
Wong was left bleeding and dazed with cuts to his face.
He was cuffed and and taken to St. Luke’s Hospital. After several hours, he was hauled off to the 24th Precinct station house.
His 41-year-old son, a lawyer who would not give his name, first said at the station house Sunday night that did not wish to discuss his feelings about the incident.
“I don’t want to talk about anything like that in front of all these cops,’’ he told the Post
But walking farther down the street, he said, “The cops are playing games. They won’t tell me what he’s being charged with.”
He first heard his dad had been busted in a 6 p.m. phone call from cops, who asked if the elderly man needed medication but would not say which hospital he’d been taken to. So the son went to the station house, where he said he got a similar run-around.
Finally, he found out on his own that his dad was at St. Luke’s and had been arrested for jaywalking.
“Oh, great! Beating up on an 84-year-old man for jaywalking,’’ he said.
Neither the hospital nor the cops would allow him to see his dad until after 10 p.m., explaining that since he’d not been admitted, he was not a patient, but a “prisoner.’’
Early Monday, cops fingerprinted Wong and charged him with jaywalking, resisting arrest, obstructing governmental administration and disorderly conduct. He went home, accompanied by several family members, with a desk-appearance ticket.
Another of Wong’s sons, who also would not give his name, said the family “will probably press charges’’ against the cops, adding:
“He was just walking across the street with other people, and they picked him out. How could they do that to an 84-year-old man.’’
NYPD officials said “the incident is under internal review.”
The violence unfolded in front of several news reporters, who had been at the intersection documenting an accident that killed Upper West Side pedestrian Samantha Lee 12 hours earlier.
After Lee’s death, police resorted to the old-school tactic of writing up pedestrians for jaywalking at $250 a pop.
“Everyone does it. Heck, the cops do it,” said Emily Skeggs, 23, who was ticketed for illegally crossing the street.
Mayor de Blasio’s spokesman, Phil Walzak, said Sunday, “We won’t sit by while lives are lost and families are torn apart. These latest crashes underscore the urgent need to make our streets safer, which is why we are moving decisively to enact ‘Vision Zero’.”
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