A Queens man who had his stolen car returned to him by the NYPD was pulled over and surrounded by gun-waving cops just months later because they forgot to remove the vehicle from their database, according to a new lawsuit.
In his Brooklyn federal suit, Clinton Pittman claims that his 1999 Honda Civic was stolen in September 2011 in Jamaica, Queens and that he reported the theft to police.
The vehicle was located by cops the next day and Pittman picked it up from the 48th Precinct stationhouse in The Bronx, the suit states.
Pittman claims that he was driving the same car along the Van Wyck Service Road with his then 11-year-old son two months later when an unmarked NYPD vehicle suddenly swerved in front of him and cut him off at an intersection.
A pair of Nassau County police cruisers and a marked NYPD car arrived at the scene and surrounded the stunned father and son.
“All of the officers exited their vehicles with their guns drawn and pointed at Plaintiff and Plaintiff’s 11-year-old son who was sitting in the back seat,” according to the suit. “The officers proceeded to yell expletives and commands at Plaintiff informing him not to move and to keep his hands on the steering wheel.”
Pittman claims that his son was placed in the back seat of the NYPD cop car while he tried to explain that his vehicle was no longer hot.
After handing over his identification, the cops finally let him go after roughly 30 minutes of armed grilling, the suit states.
Pittman and his son “continue to suffer substantial mental and emotional harm” from the incident, the suit states, noting that the NYPD apparently failed to remove his car from their stolen vehicle database.
He is suing the city, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, and several unidentified officers.