A New York City Parks employee is under investigation after grabbing a teenage girl and placing her in handcuffs after she was caught allegedly selling fruit from an unlicensed cart with her family in Lower Manhattan on Sunday afternoon, according to witnesses.
A New York Police Department (NYPD) source told The Epoch Times that officers had arrived at the scene to assist the Parks Department but had no role in detaining the teenage girl.
In a statement to The Epoch Times, the Parks Department claimed that action was needed to uphold the law: “Our Parks Enforcement Patrol’s (PEP) first course of action is to educate in order to bring violators into compliance. When individuals have repeatedly flouted the law, we take additional enforcement actions, and there are instances when it is necessary to place violators and individuals obstructing the law under arrest.”
Parks agents had confiscated the food, and while attempting to destroy the items, a woman and the girl attempted to intervene, according to officials.
“That area has received a substantial number of 311 complaints because of illegal vendoring,” said Mr. Adams. “It’s impacting the quality of life. We hear it all the time. People are calling us and saying it gives the appearance that our city is having a level of disorder and anything, everything goes.
“The park enforcement officers must respond to that. We have to respond to complaints that are coming from citizens,” he continued.
“The parent there is a habitual abuser of it, and she has been told several times, and she refuses to comply. Now, the Parks is doing an investigation, and we’re going to do an investigation with the Police Department as well because the police responded also,” he added.
Mr. Adams claimed that the footage also highlighted the complexity of New York’s immigration debate and the real issue that needs to be addressed is how to grant those who have entered the nation illegally the legal right to work.
“We’re going to continue to get better at what we do. The larger problem here that no one wants to talk about [is that] it is not dignified to have people unable to provide for themselves. We’ve been saying this for almost two years now. Let them work,” he said.
The incident is being investigated, and the officer involved has been assigned administrative duties while the investigation is ongoing, according to officials.
The 32-year-old woman received a Desk Appearance Ticket, and the 14-year-old girl received a juvenile report, according to officials.
New York City experienced an unprecedented surge in serious crime last year, according to internal NYPD data, an apparent contradiction of Mr. Adams’s continued claims that “crime is down” in the city.
Nearly all crime has been on the rise in New York City.
Further, the seven major felony offenses—murder, rape, robbery, assault, car theft, grand larceny, and burglary—spiked to 127,111 in 2023, the highest total since 2006, according to the police data.
However, during his State of the City address in January, Mr. Adams, a former police officer who campaigned on a law-and-order platform, insisted that “crime is down.”
“When we came into office two years ago, we had a clear mission: protect public safety, rebuild our economy, and make this city more livable,” Mr. Adams said. “Two years in, we are seeing real results. Crime is down, jobs are up, and every day, we are delivering for working-class New Yorkers.”
During a February press conference in Manhattan, Mr. Adams again reaffirmed his view, telling reporters that New York was “going to continue to be the safest big city in America.”
