New surveillance video from inside a Brooklyn liquor store shows another angle of the rough mistaken identity arrest that ignited a firestorm of criticism, offering a different angle as one of the detectives appears to stomp the prone suspect.
The 12-second snippet obtained by the Daily News, taken from overhead inside the BK Wine Depot in Boerum Hill on Tuesday, shows Det. Voken Maden kick Timothy Brown’s hand, then step on the man’s knee as his partner, Det. Michael Algerio, holds him to the ground.
A much longer video of the confrontation, taken by a bystander, shocked the city last week. It shows the two cops crashing into a display of wine bottles while punching Brown in the face and body as he resisted being handcuffed.
At one point in that video, it appeared that Maden might have stomped Brown’s head but the new camera angle shows his foot appears to have made contact with the suspect’s hand instead.
Maden and Algerio have been placed on modified duty and stripped of their shields and guns as the NYPD conducts an internal investigation. Brooklyn D.A. Eric Gonzalez’s office announced Thursday that it’s declining to pursue charges against Brown, who the officers had mistaken as a target in their drug bust operation.
The department has transferred a captain, a lieutenant, and six Brooklyn Narcotics detectives who made up the team that ran the botched buy-and-bust operation in the aftermath of the video.
Additional surveillance video shows the run-up to the takedown — the detectives, wearing NYPD vests, flank Brown, as they speak to him briefly, then try to place him in handcuffs. Maden takes thee wine bottle from him and the officers reach for his wrists but Brown resists and yanks his arms back, the video shows.
After that, each cop grabs one of Brown’s arms as they place him against a refrigerated case. Brown again pulls his hands away from the cops before Maden starts punching him. As they continue to struggle, Maden pushes Brown’s head into a glass refrigerator door as both cops repeatedly hit him.
Gardiner Anderson / New York Daily News
BK Wine Depot on Hoyt St. in Brooklyn. (Gardiner Anderson / New York Daily News)
A few moments later, Brown, still struggling with detectives, ends up falling head first into a wine bottle display, sending more than a dozen bottles smashing onto the store floor, the video shows.
The cops drag Brown on the floor, over the glass bottles, and video shot by witness Abelee Moran shows the detectives continue to strike Brown, who was bleeding from a deep cut to his leg, as they try to cuff his hands behind his back.
Both Mayor Mamdani and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch were quick last week to condemn the rough treatment of the suspect seen in the videos.