Yesterday, we learned that the mother of a 27-year-old Bronx man who was fatally struck by a police car last spring—after being chased for allegedly stealing bricks—had been sent a $710 bill to repair the police car that killed him. Now, the collection agency has vowed that they won't collect the money, and the city has apologized as well, calling the letter an error: “We regret that Mr. Robinson’s family received a collection notice,” said Law Department spokeswoman Kate Ahlers in a statement. “We recognize that this involves a tragic case.”
The letter with the bill, which is owed for “property damage to a vehicle owned by the New York Police Department,” also threatened legal action against mother Laverne Dobbinson if the family didn't pay within 10 days. “We are not going to proceed with the collection of the account,” an official of the law firm of Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson, the law firm that had been charged with collecting the money, told the Daily News.
Nevertheless, Dobbinson said she felt “disrespected” by the letter: “I was humiliated that they’re sending my son a letter for the car that killed him,” she said during a press conference Friday. “They killed him; let him rest in peace.” Dobbinson’s lawyer, Sanford Rubenstein, has filed a notice of intent to sue the city seeking $20 million for what he called a wrongful death; he claimed that Robinson's death was a police cover-up, and that the “head injuries were inconsistent with Tamon running into a car.”
