The Glade 4.0

A security guard says she suffered a broken ankle after being arrested for not helping cops subdue a suspect - even though she told police she couldn't leave her post.

The NYPD and Civilian Complaint Review Board are investigating the allegations by Anyeris Reyes, 22, a guard at an Audubon Ave. apartment complex in Washington Heights.

Reyes said that on March 19 around 8 p.m., two plainclothes narcotics cops struggled to subdue a suspect right outside of the building she was guarding. After additional cops helped get the man under control, officers berated Reyes for not lending a hand.

Reyes said a cop scolded her, "You stupid b---h, why didn't you help me?"

Reyes, who says she's not allowed to leave her post, told the cop: "I'm not a police officer, just a security guard. ... I'm not even allowed to step out of the building."

Five minutes later, Reyes said a sergeant walked in and told her, "Yo, b---h, get up. You're coming with us," before cuffing her hands behind her back and placing her under arrest.

The 5-foot-7, 255-pound Reyes said that when she told a cop she was "too short and too heavy" to get up into the police van, an officer told her: "B---h, why should we help you if you didn't help one of our guys?"

Then Reyes said the cop told her to lean on his shoulder and step into the van, only to move out of the way so she fell to the ground.

"He just let me fall. He was just laughing at me. I got up, and they threw me in the wagon," she said.

Her ankle swelling, Reyes said she was forced to watch cops strip-search male prisoners at the 33rd Precinct, where her supervisor told cops that she was not allowed to step out of the building.

"We don't wear bulletproof vests, we don't have weapons. We're not cops," said Reyes, who was issued a desk appearance ticket and charged with "refusing to aid a peace or a police officer," a class B misdemeanor.

Her court date is April 20.

Meanwhile, Reyes said she was in pain. EMTs called to the stationhouse took her to nearby New York-Presbyterian Hospital Columbia, where X-rays showed she had a fractured ankle.

"The doctor said I'm going to have long-term pain standing and walking," said Reyes. The Civilian Complaint Review Board confirmed Reyes filed a complaint March 24.

A police spokesman would not comment, except to say the chief of department's office also has launched an investigation.

§ 195.10 Refusing to aid a peace or a police officer.
A person is guilty of refusing to aid a peace or a police officer
when, upon command by a peace or a police officer identifiable or
identified to him as such, he unreasonably fails or refuses to aid such
peace or a police officer in effecting an arrest, or in preventing the
commission by another person of any offense.
Refusing to aid a peace or a police officer is a class B misdemeanor.

I could see so many issues with this, a cop struggling with a suspect asks for help and the person helping kills the suspect either on purpose or accidentally who is liable?

Three strangers from South Jersey became good Samaritans for a few frantic minutes outside a Wawa last year when they helped a police officer subdue a man in the parking lot. That man, Keith Briscoe, apparently had done nothing wrong, though, and died beneath a pile of civilians and police officers. Now, the Winslow Township officer who initiated the arrest is no longer on the force, and he, those "good Samaritans" and four current officers are defendants in a $25 million civil lawsuit filed on behalf of Briscoe's family.

Everyone gets sued:

In this case, apparently, the cop didn't ask for help, so that may impact the final result, but still, the basic principle holds - everyone gets sued.

Basically if you're anywhere near a crime scene, you're screwed.

(A) No person shall negligently fail or refuse to aid a law enforcement officer, when called upon for assistance in preventing or halting the commission of an offense, or in apprehending or detaining an offender, when such aid can be given without a substantial risk of physical harm to the person giving it.

(B) Whoever violates this section is guilty of failure to aid a law enforcement officer, a minor misdemeanor.

19 Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. 20 There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

I would just like to point out that any time an armed, and trained police officer requires help to apprehend, subdue, or otherwise detain a suspect; it has trancended the abilities of trained law enforcement and is then by definition a substantial risk to an untrained and unarmed bystander.

That is not necessarily true. This can also refer to help that has nothing to do with physically confronting the subject. For example, if you own a large building and a suspect flees into it, the cops might need your help in identifying who the actual workers there are, where the exists are, what the floor plan is, etc.

You are correct if you're referring to the actual physical confrontation portion of it.

19 Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. 20 There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

I'm speaking as it applies to this particular instance, in which the confrontation was physical.

I'm completely buying her story that she didn't help and then was arrested (regardless of if she was asked or not).

I'm really not buying her claims of abuse. I thin she got arrested, fell getting into the police vehicle because she's fat, and figured "hey, I'm embellish the story with all sorts of claims of abuse so I can get some money out of this as well as getting off on the charges."

Don't get me wrong, I think the charge and arrest were unjustified, but all the "icing ont he cake" just reeks to me of trying to get a big settlement out of it.