3 Officers ‘An Embarrassment’ For Allowing Prisoner Escape

Three officers whose flubbed arrest allowed a handcuffed prisoner to run away on Tuesday, making him the fifth to escape from police since June, are “an embarrassment” to the nation’s biggest police department, its commissioner said.

Gerald Brooks was arrested on Tuesday in East New York. Brooks, 39, had five warrants and had been arrested 54 times. As the police were leading him to a waiting police car, he shoved a detective and ran off. NYPD Chief William Bratton said the officers’ missteps “will be dealt with with significant consequences … once we determine the circumstances.”

“They’re an embarrassment to themselves, to the unit, to this department, and they’re going to create a lot more work for this department as a result of their inefficiencies this morning,” Bratton said at a news conference.

This is the fifth escape since June. One was caught a month later and the other three were caught within days.

“If the cops were just paying attention to their responsibilities, a lot of this stuff would stop,” Bratton said. “I’m very concerned when somebody with a pair of handcuffs, handcuffed behind them, can flee from three of my officers and they can’t catch him. I’m sorry — there’s something wrong there when that’s happening, repeatedly, over and over again.”

This article appeared in print on page 24 of the October 21st, 2015 edition of Hamodia.