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Should Payphones Be Free?
What's worse than having the NYPD wrongfully arrest you? We think having your 3-year-old daughter taken into protective custody for three days because you were falsely arrested ranks pretty high. Margarita Santiago filed a notice of claim again the the city and city agencies, the step before a lawsuit, over an outrageous December 2006 incident.
Santiago, visiting NYC from Pennsylvania, was in a friend's car in East Harlem when the cops pulled them over on December 8. (It seems that the friend was driving while intoxicated.) When the police ran Santiago's Pennsylvania license, they arrested her, because they had "an outstanding bench warrant for an East Harlem resident named Margarita Santelises," according to the AP. So they arrested her - in front of 3-year-old daughter Mikhaila - and put Mikhailia into the Administration for Children's Services' care. And while Santiago was able to clear up the matter on December 9, she didn't her daughter back until December 12!
Santiago's lawyer Eric Rothstein told reporters, "She didn't know where her daughter was for three full days and part of two other days, and of course her daughter had no idea where Mommy was and wanted to know why Mommy had been arrested and when would she see Mommy again."
Santiago said Mikhaila panics if she see police cars, "She thinks that she's going to be taken away from me again. Rothstein said his client will sue if the city doesn't settle.
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the NYPD tried to put their spin on this,
they're saying she's an unfit mother because she didn't have a child car seat in her car.
I would love to be on this jury.
I find for the plaintiff. Pay her.
How about firing the cops who arrested the wrong woman?
After all they can be considered unfit officers because they can't even arrest the right person. And had no clue they were harassing an innocent person and her child.
Charging her as an unfit mother in more NYPD bullshit.
I am tired of their lame excuses and trying to flip stories to cover their incompetence.
OK - who wants to be the first person to point out that this woman let her child ride in a car with a drunk person behind the wheel? Classy.
Drunk? Suspicion of being drunk? The woman thought the driver was sound enough to drive. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't; we don't know that part of the story.
Why were the cops IDing the mother--she was not the driver. Arrest the arresting officer and fire Kelly (Kelly for Sean Bell, etc.). See incompetence note from Get a Clue above.
Yeah - i'm sure noone here has ever taken a ride from someone who was legally drunk. Or driven legally drunk.
Hey - should I be the first one to point out that "Santiago" and "Santelises" aren't even close enough sounding to have confused an adult, let alone a police officer?
Great job, guys. Another kid grows up afraid of cops.
I guess if she didn't want her identity mistaken she shouldn't have been born Hispanic, right?
The little girls face looks so familiar, then I remember, She looks like "Snoop" from the Wire.
With chubbier cheeks. but the facial expression is the same.
Ok...so can we hope that these were the only cops who are functionally illiterate?
Yeah - i'm sure noone here has ever taken a ride from someone who was legally drunk. Or driven legally drunk.
Taken a ride or driven legally drunk, yes.
Taking a 3-year-old KID on a ride while legally drunk, not so much.
The original story I read about this left off the facts that the kid wasn't in a car seat AND that the driver was DUI. So, no, a two day holdover for subjecting your child to two very egregious violations of their safety is not the end of the world; and is frankly what ACS is supposed to do. If they arrested anyone for DUI with their kid in the car, it's pretty likely the kid would get taken into custody and they would examine your parental qualifications.
If you want to make a jurisdictional argument, that's fine.
The car seat rap is BS, she looks close enough to need a booster seat but you racists are just racists.
Pay her, big bux.
I want to see everyone of you racist drunk drivers wrapped around a tree next week for your favorite drinking holiday.
Pay the lady & apologize. The last names are as different as JOnes is from Johnson. And it's not her fault the driver was at or slightly above the legal limit, she WASN'T driving. Maybe she didn't even know the driver was boozed. I work with judges who regularly down a couple of drinks at noon then DRIVE back to court!. Of course, they're white & powerful so who's gonna fuck with them?.
The car seat rap is BS, she looks close enough to need a booster seat but you racists are just racists.
Hey, here's a wacky idea. Pay attention to your state laws and see what your government is doing to you. In New York if a kid is younger than four they're required by law to be in a car seat. It doesn't matter "how they look." Oh, and let's not pay any attention to the drunk driver.
Just call racism... because it's the only motivator for ever doing anything to non-white people.
"KA-ching" !!!