More than just pepper spray was in the air at Occupy Wall Street last fall.
A woman who was pepper-sprayed in the face in a notorious incident involving Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna is now nine months pregnant with the child of a fellow protester who’d rushed to her aid, her lawyer revealed today.
Kaylee Dedrick, a teacher’s assistant from Albany, became “one of the victims of the spray felt around the world” last Sept. 24, when she took part in an OWS protest near Union Square, papers filed in Manhattan federal court say.
The suit says Dedrick, 24, started yelling, “Stop it!” when she saw police treating another protester roughly.
“Dedrick and several other young women who [were] behaving peacefully” then became the target of the NYPD veteran who’s since become known as “Tony Baloney.”
“Bologna unhooked his can of pepper spray, lunged toward the group, and without warning or justification, sprayed the irritant directly into the crowd of women,” the suit says.
Dedrick was screaming in agony, but police didn’t lift a finger to help her, the suit says.
That’s when a fellow protester who’d been trained to help pepper spray victims rushed to Dedrick’s aid – leading to a bit of a “happy ending,” said Dedrick’s lawyer, Ron Kuby.
Dedrick fell for her rescuer, Robert Grodt, and the pair are now engaged. Their baby is due in two weeks.
“They’ve refused to name the baby ‘Pepper,'” Kuby quipped.
The suit seeks unspecified money damages. Kuby said his client had held off on filing suit because she was hoping Bologna would be punished criminally, but the Manhattan District Attorney’s office has yet to do so.
The NYPD docked him ten vacation days, but Kuby said that was the wrong thing to do.
“He needs time off,” Kuby said. “That guy needs a long vacation.”
The Manhattan DA’s office declined comment, and the city Law Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The entire pepper spraying incident sparked a national furor when it was posted on YouTube.