BY Terese Loeb Kreuzer
Battery Park City resident, Adam Pratt, was walking his dog on South End Avenue near South Cove on Saturday, January 29, and suddenly found his quiet Saturday shattered when a Parks Enforcement Patrol officer approached him in a golf cart and asked to see his identification.
Pratt, 39, who had been talking on his cellphone with his grandmother, said he didn’t have any ID with him but that many people knew him because he had lived in Battery Park City for years. Pratt later said that he had never seen this PEP officer before. According to Pratt, she then struck him in the face three times with her walkie-talkie. A woman, Stella Jacobson, who lives at 2 South End Avenue and happened to be looking out her window, corroborated Pratt’s account.
The Parks Enforcement Patrol is under the jurisdiction of the New York City Department of Parks, but salaries for the Battery Park City contingent are paid by the Battery Park City Authority.
The Parks Department issued the following statement about the incident: “On Saturday, January 29, a man in Battery Park City was issued a summons for disorderly conduct and brought to Bellevue Hospital for evaluation after behaving irrationally and striking a female Parks Enforcement Officer. Conflicting reports state that the Parks Enforcement Officer initiated the confrontation. We will therefore take further steps to look into this.”
Pratt took a picture of the PEP officer with his cellphone and told her he was going to call 911. Then he said he was going home and attempted to walk up South End Avenue with his dog. According to Pratt, the PEP officer followed him. Pratt ran into the Regatta, an apartment building on South End Avenue, and asked the desk attendant to call 911. When Pratt left the Regatta, he ran into some stores on South End Avenue where he was known, and again asked that someone call 911. Back on the street, Pratt found a PEP officer who was not in uniform trying to block his path. Pratt said the man started chest bumping Pratt, who by this time, was holding his dog in his arms.
Vince Smith, who owns a hair salon on South End Avenue, took some photographs and a video of the incident. Several PEP officers allegedly jumped Pratt at the corner of South End Avenue and Rector Place. One of them put his knee in Pratt’s back and held him to the ground. Another pulled Lyka from Pratt’s arms and threw her into a snowdrift.
By this time, an FDNY ambulance had arrived. Pratt was handcuffed with his hands behind his back, and placed in the ambulance. NYPD officers also arrived but soon departed since they said that the Parks Enforcement Patrol was handling the situation.
According to Steve Moskovitz, a friend of Pratt’s, “Adam explained to the FDNY ambulance personnel that he had a medical condition and begged them to take him to Sloan-Kettering, where he was being treated.” Instead, Pratt discovered when he exited the ambulance that he was at Bellevue, where he was taken to the psychiatric ward. He had not been charged with anything and was not under arrest.
“Bellevue was wondering what he was doing there,” said Moskovitz. “They had to fumble through their books to figure out a charge. They ended up charging him with ‘disorderly behavior.’ They asked him to sign a citation, but he refused.”
At this point, Pratt’s handcuffs were removed and he was escorted into a room for psychiatric evaluation. “They asked him if he thought he had super powers,” said Moskovitz. “They tried to find ways to show that he was psychotic. However, fortunately a friend named Tiffany Shea was with him.”
Shea and Pratt had planned to meet that afternoon. When Pratt didn’t show up, Shea became concerned and went to look for him. She saw what was happening and was able to accompany him in the ambulance. She refused to leave him.
After around seven hours, Pratt was released from Bellevue. However, he was in great pain. Later that night, he went to the emergency room at New York Downtown hospital, where he was X-rayed and told that he had rib contusions.
In continuing pain and with difficulty breathing, Pratt says that he plans to sue.
Both Pratt and Moskovitz believe that what happened was a vendetta on the part of the Parks Enforcement Patrol. For several years, “Adam has been videotaping and photographing PEP officers asleep in their cars, hogging parking spaces on West Thames Street and driving their golf carts at night without the lights on,” said Moskovitz. “He believes that what happened to him may have been vindictive on their part.”
Pratt characterized most of the PEP officers as “thug like” and “abusing their authority.” He said that he is now afraid to go out in the neighborhood for fear of being attacked again.
