Teen Sues City, Says Cops Called Him Plaxico After Shooting

Plaxico Burress (not Christian Dudley)

A Manhattan teenager with no criminal record is suing the city for $1 million because cops arrested and taunted him as "Plaxico Burress" after he got shot in a robbery. Christian Dudley doesn't even own a gun, but that didn't matter to the officers who collared him after the Harlem mugging earlier this year. He was arrested in a Washington Heights hospital where he was waiting to get the bullet removed from the back of his knee—instead of surgery, he got dragged to the precinct on a charge of criminal possession of a weapon. And that's where the fun really started.

"As soon as I went into the precinct and I had the cuffs on they said, 'Oh, is this Plaxico?'" Dudley tells the Daily News. "And then when I was in the cell, while they processed me, they called me Plaxico, making fun of me...It was the worst experience ever. I was treated as a suspect when I was a victim." Police summoned to the hospital had decided that because there was no bullet hole in Dudley's pants, he must have shot himself accidentally, in the same way NFL player Plaxico Burress shot himself with a gun in his waistband. Elementary!

But Dudley insists his baggy pants had slipped down during the mugging. His lawyer calls the possession charge, which was later dropped, "Outrageous. They created this cockamamie theory with no evidence." The lawsuit charges that in addition to the humiliation, the immediate arrest prevented Dudley from getting the bullet removed from his leg.

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By John Del Signore in News on October 21, 2009 4:52 PM

Comments [rss]

dadoc

Damn, this board is becoming the Felix/Bloomberg/Quinn rant. Friggin boring. Board just lost a viewer/poster for a month or two. Waste of time & interest. Might check back much later if there's any intelligent discussion. Snoop, Valeriob, Nanny, etc, thanks for the fun, opening day is up & time to do something useful and rewarding. And Felix, it's all yours. Feel free to rant & drop the hits/ad rev daily. Gonna go have a carnie meal & take a carriage horse ride. Adieu.

PTG in nyc

Oh, and I agree these lawsuits should come out of their pensions, but only $1 million out of the city's coffers is total chump change.

The NYPD needs to make fun of 127 more fake Plaxicos or whatever it is to equal one walkie talkie subway platform sodomization.

PTG in nyc

This is confusing, but I agree with pretty much every comment here, even FTC2's, woohoo.

There's nothing like the fuzz creating fuzzy situations to bring us all together.

ocm123

I don't know what really happened, but there is probably more to the story than Mr. Dudley's claims. For his story to be true, his pants would have had to have fallen below his knees, which seems unlikely. Also, for an arrest to have occurred, gun powder residue was mostly found on his leg. As anyone in law enforcement will tell you, self-inflicted gun shot wounds to the upper thigh/knee region happen on a regular basis around the city; in fact, they probably occur more often than random muggings that result in a person being shot. Thus, it was, and possibly still is, reasonable for the police to suspect that this is what really happened.

As for him being made fun of, well, I agree that is unprofessional.

ocm123

I meant to say gun power was most likely found on his leg.

P.S. I wish there was a way to edit your post directly.

potsmoker

i was shocked at the immediate arrest thing,

go to central booking with a bullet hole???

Austin Baird

I'm a little in awe that cockamamie is still part of a lawyer's parlance lol

felixthecat2

Bloomberg and Kelly are both major failures. How much will this cost us now??? Why doesn't bloomberg pay instead of taxpayers who have no say in the NYPD training and the dismantling of the civilian board.

Noreaster76

Oh, like this kind of thing hasn't been happening for decades. Rant against police brutality or how hopelessly litigious our society has become or how common it is to lack respect for your fellow man (in the case of the police officers), not against the mayor or the police chief who can't possibly guarantee perfect performance at every level of a force thousands strong, you dumb-ass.

felixthecat2

When it comes to police misconduct, the Bloomberg administartion has a far worse record than Giuliani’s. Bloomberg, however, gets a free-pass from the media and others.

felixthecat2

dumbass, Bloombeg appointed Kelly and the civilian board has lost authority and funding under both Guiliani and Bloomberg. There is no such thing as a perfect performance but too MUCH under Bloomberg.

850,000 police stops of civilians from Jan. 1, 2006, through September 2007, gleaned from reports that officers are required to file with details like the race and sex of the person and the reason for the stop. In the subsequent two quarters, through March of this year, there were 254,953 stops, the N.Y.C.L.U. said.

Blacks made up more than half of the 469,000 stops in 2007, even though they make up only one-quarter of the city’s population, and Latinos, 30 percent, according to the civil liberties group. It said 88 percent of the people stopped that year did not get summonses or were not arrested.

ocm123

The police within precincts with crime rates, such as the 73rd (Brownsville), the 75th (East New York), the 40th (Mott Haven), the 44th (High Bridge) the 67th (East Flatbush), the 79th (Bed-Stuy), "stop and frisk" the most people. Unfortunately, these areas have more "minorities" than whites; that is just a fact. This is why those numbers that you cited do not necessarily prove that there is widespread racism in police department. By the way, over the last five (or so) years, less than 50 percent of those who joined the force have been white.

ocm123

In the first sentence I meant to say "high crime rates."

leon

once again gothamist community ... to call cops pigs is an insult to pigs everywhere (as if the get respect anyway) PIGS deserve respect. they are very intelligent and deserve to treated with dignity and compassion. cops on the other hand deserve nothing. wake up!

felixthecat2

"But Dudley insists his baggy pants had slipped down during the mugging", Another reason to stop wearing those pants besides the fact I don't want to see your boxers.

imadick

right. fear of the police should change your clothing choices.

Guest

No, fear of police should make you buy a gun. Being completely unable to function in the event of an emergency (i.e. you hear gunshots, you run) should make you pull up your pants (or buy clothing that fits).

Jen S

You've heard of DWB....now we have SWB!

zodak

NYPigD at it's finest as usual.

of course they need to change the law so that the money doesn't come from the city but from these pigs' pension, then maybe the rest of the swing would do their jobs.