Jazmine gets $625G
COPS TOOK BABY FROM HER ARMS
The mother whose 1-yearold son was ripped from her arms in at a Brooklyn benefits office has received a $625,000 settlement from the city.
Jazmine Headley’s traumatic confrontation on Dec. 7 of last year with Human Resources Administration peace officers and NYPD cops was captured in a video that went viral and prompted apologies from Mayor de Blasio and other prominent officials.
“Ms. Headley came to the city seeking help, and we failed to treat her with the dignity and respect she deserved. While this injustice should have never happened, it forced a reckoning with how we treat our most vulnerable and prompted us to make reforms at HRA Centers across the city. We hope this settlement brings Ms. Headley and her family a degree of closure,” said Olivia Lapeyrolerie, a spokeswoman for de Blasio.
Headley sued the city in August. Her suit recounted the episode and her ensuing trauma in disturbing detail.
The lawsuit filed in Brooklyn Federal Court recounts the awful ordeal — and its ongoing consequences.
“Ms. Headley had been humiliated, assaulted, physically injured, threatened with a taser, brutally separated from her son, handcuffed, arrested, and jailed,” the suit read.
“What unleashed this torrent of violence and abuse against a young mother and her son? Ms. Headley had dared to sit on the floor of the crowded HRA waiting room next to her son’s stroller, her back against a wall. She was tired after waiting for almost three hours to see a caseworker.”
She spent two days at Rikers Island on charges of obstruction, resisting arrest, endangering the welfare of a child, and trespassing. Those were the first days she’d even been apart from her son, the suit notes. The charges were later dismissed.
Her son “displayed changed behaviors after the events, including a diminished appetite, separation anxiety, and difficulty sleeping, and he became more withdrawn,” the suit says.
Headley previously said she hoped her suit would prompt reforms that address an unfair stigma associated with people receiving public assistance.
In testimony to the City Council earlier this year, she spoke about the dehumanizing experience.
“I’ve done what I’m supposed to do. I’ve done what I had to do. It felt like no one cared about me or what I had to say. It felt like I was just a number, a ticket, a problem,” Headley told the Council in February. “It’s not just the fact that I was arrested. It was the harsh way that I was treated by people who are supposed to help me.”
City Hall pointed to an array of changes at the city’s Department of Social Services, including de-escalation training and a plan to equip every peace officer with body cameras by the end of the year.
A message for Headley’s attorneys was not immediately returned.