Police say an officer trying to arrest a shoplifter at Barneys was assaulted by the suspect, who managed to evade arrest.
According to the police, last Saturday, August 9, at 5:35 p.m., the suspect was shoplifting clothing at the upscale Madison Avenue store with an accomplice. The NYPD says, "When the responding officers attempted to make a lawful arrest, the suspect did resist arrest by fighting the officers and injuring one of the officers before fleeing the location."
The injured police officer suffered a back injury and was taken to a hospital for treatment. He has been released. The other shoplifter was arrested.
DNAinfo reports, "Barneys employees flagged down a set of NYPD officers who were near the store...to report two men they said shoplifted $860 worth of clothes." Barneys said the actual altercation between police and the shoplifters was in front of the Fifth Avenue Apple Store.
DNAinfo adds, "The NYPD could not immediately say how the officers came to be in the area or whether they were assigned to patrol the store. The department and Barneys have reportedly blamed each other for disproportionately targeting black and Latino shoppers with accusations of shoplifting." Recently, Barneys signed a $525,000 settlement and agreed to a series of reforms to end its racial profiling of customers as well as reliance on the NYPD.
Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-577-TIPS. The public can also submit tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers Website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM or texting their tips to 274637(CRIMES) then entering TIP577.
