Now these are some dim bulbs!
Lawyers for Columbia University are blaming a hero detective — for running too fast to catch a drug dealer.
The allegation comes after the cop sued the school for allegedly failing to properly light a construction scaffold that he crashed into on foot, causing him career-ending injuries.
Detective Sgt. Robert Johnson — whose 22-year career is chronicled in the 2010 book “Brave Hearts” by Cynthia Brown — “ran into an inanimate object while in full running pursuit of a criminal suspect,” Columbia’s attorney, Randi Schwartz, says in court papers.
“He offers no explanation for the accident other than his ego, testifying essentially that if it was not too dark, he never would have run into it.”
Johnson’s $1.5 million case against Columbia is scheduled to go to trial this month.
Columbia “incredibly blames [Johnson] for not being more careful when chasing a fleeing suspect,” the cop’s attorney, Gary Carlton, says in his Manhattan Supreme Court suit, filed in 2010.
“They blame him for running at full speed to catch a drug dealer.”
Johnson, now 46, was working as part of a joint FBI-Drug Enforcement Agency task force in October 2007 when he and his partner tried to make an undercover drug buy.
But their suspected dealer got spooked and fled — first by car, then, after spinning out, by foot.
The award-winning cop, who at age 16 became the youngest person to pass the civil-service exam, ran after the suspect, turning a corner at 109th Street and heading east toward Broadway.
There, he ran smack into scaffolding on one of Columbia’s student-housing buildings.
Johnson described the area as “black, dark,” but Columbia insists it was “bright.”
Johnson, who lives in Putnam County with his wife and kids, says he suffered a fractured right clavicle, a right shoulder impingement, a fracture in the right elbow and traumatic derangement of the cervical spine.
A supervisor for the scaffolder, Outdoor Installation, testified the area was lit by a 100-watt bulb. City rules require 200 watts.
Columbia’s attorney did not return calls for comment but says in court papers that the university had never received complaints about the lighting.
The school also says Johnson sustained the injuries when he was struggling with the suspect.
Additional reporting by Lia Eustachewich