A Bronx woman who pleaded with cops not to use Tasers on her mentally ill teen cousin won a $125,000 settlement from the city after complaining she was wrongly arrested on a charge of obstructing governmental administration.
Money was not the aim of her complaint, says Cheyenne Lee, 30.
Instead, she said, she pursued the case into Manhattan Federal Court “with the intent to change the police’s way of doing things.”
Lee was arrested the night of Dec. 3, 2021, after nine cops from the 42nd Precinct showed up at her uncle Pedro Perez’s apartment looking for his son, then 16. The News is not identifying him because he is a minor.
The teen, who is Lee’s cousin, had minutes earlier been in what Lee called a “scuffle” with his father. The father picked up a wrench before his son took it away from him, she said.
Perez then left and went to see a neighbor, who called 911 to report he had been beaten by his son, according to Lee’s civil rights lawsuit. Perez did not need an ambulance and there was no weapon involved, the 911 caller said, according to the suit.
But according to Lee, now 30, and her lawyer, Anne Venhuizen of the Bronx Defenders, when officers got to the building on E. 163rd St. near Third Ave., they saw Perez in a hallway and he said “I’m good, I’m good” in response to questions about his injuries.
Police entered the apartment anyway, which Venhuizen said they had no right to do since they didn’t have a warrant and they didn’t ask Lee or her uncle to sign a consent to search form.
Lee didn’t hide her cousin’s whereabouts and said he was in the bedroom, her lawsuit said. At that point, police moved in to arrest the teen.
He wasn’t cooperative and refused to be handcuffed, Lee and Venhuizen said.
But when the cops pulled their Tasers, Lee said she yelled out, asking them not to stun her cousin for fear his bi-polar condition might exacerbate tensions.
At that point, Lee was handcuffed and arrested.
The teen wasn’t Tasered but he was also arrested, charged with obstructing governmental administration and resisting arrest. He agreed to an adjournment contemplating dismissal, with the case later sealed, Lee said.
Lee in her own case refused to take the adjournment contemplating dismissal, a type of agreement known in courthouse circles as an ACD. She said the charges against her stood until they were dismissed in May 2022.
“I wasn’t going to agree to something I never did,” Lee said. “What if something else happened where I wasn’t wrong again but now, because the ACD is in place, I’m going to be in trouble for both things?”
The Bronx District Attorney’s office wouldn’t comment on the case. Venhuizen said the case was dismissed because body cam footage shows that Lee did not deny her nephew was in the apartment and did not get between him and officers to try to prevent his arrest, as Officer Macciel Restituyo alleged in court papers.
The lawsuit was settled last week for $125,000, court documents show.
“Highlighting cases like this is important because it’s not something that happened to Ms. Lee in isolation,” Venhuizen said. “These are the smaller abuses of power that if left unchecked will continue.”
Lee, a hair stylist and mother of a 13-year-old girl, said the experience left her uneasy.
“Will I call the cops next time if I need help?” she asked. “What will I do?”
Asked if Restituyo or the other eight cops named in the suit, including a sergeant and lieutenant, were disciplined or sent for training, the NYPD referred the News to the city’s Law Department, which does not decide if an officer should be punished.
The Law Department referred all questions to the NYPD.
