(AP)
THAT BITES! The OWS protesters were being held at this Lower East Side station house when the officers gobbled up their pizza dinner. (Daniel Shapiro)
CHEESE OFF: Protesters who were among this group blocking traffic downtown say cops stole the pies from the East Village pizzeria. (
)
Suckers!
A group of whiny Occupy Wall Street protesters are hotter than a brick oven, claiming they ordered a delivery of pizza pies while in police custody — and the cops devoured them.
The demonstrators’ say they were detained for several hours on Thursday at the 7th Precinct on the Lower East Side for blocking traffic near City Hall, so they asked cops to allow them place a $30 pizza order through the AIDS nonprofit for which they had been protesting.
The cops agreed — but when the food arrived, the demonstrators never got so much as a slice.
The protesters — who were taking a break from annoying Wall Streeters to demonstrate for more AIDS research money — are now accusing the cops of stealing the pizza and want their dough back.
The NYPD insists it was just a misunderstanding.
“Any way you slice it, was an honest mistake,” NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said.
The cops thought the pizzas had been sent by officers outside the precinct as a thank-you for making the arrests, Browne said.
But the OWS group sees it as a cheesy punishment.
“We called our legal support team. They said, ‘We sent you the pizzas hours ago,’ ” said protester David Thorpe.
Another protester, Charles King, the president of Housing Works, a charity for homeless people with AIDS, said, “We could see the empty pizza boxes in the trash, and the empty plastic bottles.”
Protesters say they had asked the cops if they could order pizza and the cops recommended they call Mini Munchies in the East Village and even gave them its menu.
The protesters ordered two plain cheese pies and two liters of soda — a Coke and a Sprite.
Browne insists the soda was dispensed in plastic cups.
Only after the cops’ feast did the protesters realize they’d been had.
They chanted: “Stealing is bad. Cops stealing? That’s just sad.” They say the cops got red-faced.
“They laughed and smirked and didn’t deny it,” Thorpe said.
Apparently remorseful, the officers offered replacement pizzas.
But the protesters turned down the offer.
“We didn’t want to give them an excuse to hold us in jail any longer than they needed to,” Thorpe said.
The eight protesters, who’d been arrested at around noon outside City Hall, were transferred at about 9 p.m. to Central Booking to await appearances in Manhattan Criminal Court, Thorpe said.
They got to Central Booking too late for prisoners’ nightly meal.
Cops regularly feed prisoners in holding cells. If prisoners don’t like the food, “police may purchase alternatives with funds provided by the prisoners,” Browne said.
Thorpe was released at about 9:30 a.m. yesterday. Everyone in the group was out by late yesterday afternoon.