Josh
Boss, 26, says Thomas Purtell, an assistant chief and Patrol Borough Manhattan
South commander at the time of the 2011 arrest, tackled him while shouting,
'Don’t resist!' Boss sued alleging false arrest, excessive force and nerve
damage to his wrists from handcuffs.
BY
DANIEL BEEKMAN
A
Brooklyn man arrested by a top NYPD cop while live-streaming an Occupy Wall
Street march with his cell phone has settled with the city for $55,000, he told
the Daily News Thursday.
Josh
Boss, 26, says Thomas Purtell, an assistant chief and Patrol Borough Manhattan
South commander at the time of the 2011 arrest, tackled him and roughed him up
while shouting, “Don’t resist!”
Boss’s
disorderly conduct charge was ultimately dismissed — and he sued alleging false
arrest, excessive force and nerve damage to his wrists from handcuffs.
“He
turned around and sacked me,” the Bushwick man said in an exclusive interview
with The News. “I was standing in the crosswalk … I was definitely not
resisting. I had a 250-pound officer on me with his knee on my face and neck.”
Video
of the arrest at Seventh Ave. and W. 34th St. shows Purtell throwing Boss to
the pavement. “Kick his ass, Tom!” another cop yapped during the collar,
according to Boss. “I’m not resisting!” Boss hollered on the ground.
The
city’s Law Department and the NYPD didn’t return requests for comment Thursday.
“The
circumstances of this arrest had an extreme chilling effect on the First
Amendment rights of journalists in New York generally, and particularly on
Josh, who stopped doing field reporting after this incident,” said Wylie Stecklow,
a lawyer for Boss.
“For
a senior commanding officer of the NYPD to... use excessive force like this, in
front of so many subordinate officers and citizens, sets a terrible example.”
Purtell
has since been promoted to chief and heads the department’s Organized Crime
Control Bureau.
He
ran the NYPD‘s rescue and recovery operations at Ground Zero after the 9/11
attacks and presided over a decline in crime as Patrol Borough Bronx commander.
The
case was settled in January but Boss, who now works for the Huffington Post,
went public for the first time Thursday.
“I
was shocked by how aggressive the police were with me when I hadn't done
anything,” he said.
Boss
says he plans to use his settlement cash on physical therapy for his injured
right hand.