Via NYDailyNews
A Brooklyn cop kicked a 10-year-old boy in the shin, breaking his leg, as the child was recording him with his cell phone, according to court papers.
Cops were responding to Krystle Silvera’s Flatbush home looking for her ex-boyfriend in connection to violating an order of protection, according to Silvera’s lawsuit, which also contains disturbing allegations that she was sexually abused by a cop.
Krystle’s son Courtney Silvera was eating his breakfast cereal when the cops began knocking on the door.
The visit soon spiraled out of control shortly after cops began pounding on the front door at 7 a.m. on Jan. 30, 2013, according to the complaint filed in Brooklyn Federal Court.
Silvera’s 61-year-old mother, who is suffering from brain and lung cancer, answered the door but had difficulty understanding the cops’ reason for being there, the suit said.
The curious child went to see what was going on, grabbed his mother’s cell phone and began recording the commotion.
“The police had come to our house before (due to the domestic violence complaint) and he’s fascinated by the police, he looks up to them,” Silvera, 30, a nursing student at Long Island University, told the Daily News.
But the cop apparently didn’t like being recorded and began assaulting the child, the suit said.
“I heard my son screaming, ‘You can’t do that! You’re hurting me! Don’t hit me!’ ” she said.
The mother had been upstairs getting her 5-year-old daughter ready for school. She bolted downstairs into the fray, dressed in her underclothes, and was grabbed by a cop who pulled her outside in the freezing cold, the suit alleges.
While Silvera was being restrained, her breast popped out of her bra revealing a pierced nipple, according to the suit.
“The officer flicked the piercing, he flicked the ring up with his finger on my right breast,” she said.
“He said, ‘Is this what mothers look like these days?’
“My neighbors saw me naked. It was degrading. I can deal with the embarrassment of what (the police) did to me in front of my neighbors, but the hardest thing is explaining to my kids that not all police are bad,” she added.
Silvera was charged with assaulting the cops and released two days later on $1,500 bail.
An NYPD spokeswoman said the Internal Affairs Bureau has opened an investigation based on the allegations in the suit.
Three of the officers were treated and released at Maimonides Hospital for minor injuries following the incident, the department said.
“I’ve seen a lot of police brutality cases, but nothing as low as this, kicking a 10-year-old boy,” said the family’s lawyer, Anthony Ofodile.
Silvera, who later pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, is seeking unspecified monetary damages for the alleged civil rights violations.
The cell phone captured sounds and voices during the confrontations but the video image is herky-jerky from the struggle.
Silvera said her son was briefly handcuffed, but when cops learned he was only 10-years-old, they removed the restraints.
