A black NYPD sergeant has filed an $11 million lawsuit charging that a white captain who busted her for violating an expired order of protection was “racially motivated.”
“I was surrounded by white supervisors and felt they wanted to hang me.” Pamela Lambright said of her arrest inside the 111th Precinct in Queens.
Her problems with Capt. Alfonso Pizzano started in May 2009, when she followed orders to bring in her 17-year-old son for a suspect lineup relating to a robbery, the suit says.
The victim could not identify him.
Lambert’s son earlier had gotten an order of protection against her after she allegedly hit him. Because of this she was on modified duty.
Speaking in the office of her lawyer, Ikiesha Al-Shabazz, Lambright said Pizzano claimed that by bringing in the teen she violated the order.
But she claims that even though the order was no longer in effect, “Pizzano was determined to make an arrest.”
“I felt like a perp, a prisoner, a criminal,” she said.
The suit, which names Pizzano, 13 other cops and the city, says the DA declined prosecution — partly because her duty to bring in her son would have overridden the order, even one still in effect.
Additional reporting
by Janon Fisher
and Doug Auer