Teen Slugs Officer and Escapes

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The New York Sun

Brooklyn police were searching yesterday for a teenager who they said slugged a sergeant with her handcuffs and escaped custody with the manacles hanging from her wrist.


The 15-year-old, whom police would not identify because she is a juvenile, was arrested yesterday morning on a warrant for marijuana possession at her home on Surf Avenue. Detectives from the Kings County Juvenile Crimes Squad handcuffed the girl with her hands behind her back, put her in an unmarked gray van, and drove her to an apartment building at 415 Beverly Road, Prospect Park South. In a planned series of early-morning pick-ups, the detectives were rounding up defendants who had skipped their dates at Family Court, and they intended to arrest a second juvenile at the Prospect Park South address.


At 8 a.m., two detectives entered the Beverly Road building and went upstairs, leaving the juvenile in the custody of a police sergeant, who was the driver of the van. The second juvenile was not home, but the manacled suspect escaped before the detectives came back downstairs.


According to a police source, the juvenile managed to slip one hand out of the handcuffs and used the free manacle as a steel knuckle to punch the sergeant in the side of the head, cutting the woman above the ear.


“When you think about putting the handcuffs around the wrist like that, you’re talking about a knockout punch,” a police source said.


The juvenile then escaped from the van. Police launched a search for her in the area of Surf Avenue, on the theory that she fled to her home neighborhood. The girl remained at large last night.


The sergeant was taken to Methodist Hospital, where she was treated and released.


The girl is described as 5 foot 5 inches tall and 155 pounds. When she escaped, she was wearing a black bubble jacket, black pants, and a gray T-shirt. The handcuffs were still attached to one wrist.


Attacks by juveniles against arresting officers are rare, but complaints by prisoners of tight handcuffs are among the most common complaints lodged against police. Even in situations where a prisoner is required to have one hand free, officers generally do not allow the suspect to walk around while wearing only one cuff, because the loose chain with an open manacle dangling on the end could be wielded as a weapon. “They could put it in your eye,” a police source said.


That is why, police said, only a rookie officer will allow a prisoner a free hand to sign property release forms. “A seasoned cop holds the cuff when they sign,” the source said.


The juvenile who escaped is from the 60th Precinct, which has suffered an increase in homicides this year but has experienced a 10% slide in crime overall. In the most recent CompStat figures available there were 14 murders at the Coney Island precinct this year through October 17, compared with eight murders during the same period last year.


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