Community leaders in New York City are expressing outrage over the savage beating by police of a Black man in a liquor store who was mistakenly identified as a drug crime suspect and calling for the officers’ firing and arrest.
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the violence used by the officers “extremely disturbing and unacceptable,” writing on X that “officers should never treat a person this way.”
New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch also described the video of the incident as “extremely disturbing” and said the officers’ use of force was under investigation by the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau. In the meantime, she said, they have been stripped of their guns and badges and put on desk duty.
On Tuesday, two plainclothes detectives who worked in the Narcotics Bureau in Brooklyn walked into BK Wine Depot in Brooklyn and attempted to arrest a man they believed matched the description of a suspect seen making a crack cocaine sale nearby: a Black man wearing a white t-shirt and light green shorts.
Timothy L. Brown, a home health aide and security guard who had just gotten off work, was there to buy a bottle of wine. He was wearing teal-colored shorts and a matching bucket hat. As one now-viral, nearly 8-minute video captured by a bystander inside the store begins, police are accosting Brown in front of a glass-doored refrigerator, grabbing his hands and pulling him backward as he yells, “All right, all right.”
Within a second, one of the officers begins punching Brown in the head and then knees him in the abdomen as he struggles to remain standing. As Brown begins to fall over, the officers push him headfirst into a display stand with glass bottles, which crash onto the floor and break. Brown lands on the broken glass and is then punched again in the head by one officer as another drags him across the floor by his ankle.
Now just inside the store entrance, the officers scream at Brown to roll over so they can cuff him, while blood streams from a cut on his leg, and he repeatedly tells them he is a security guard. Brown is cuffed on his left hand and seems to struggle to free his right hand as one officer, who has already kicked him in the back and head, stands on his leg, pinning him to the floor.
“I’m trying,” Brown says, as more blood pools underneath his leg, and exasperated onlookers outside the door yell at the police to stop and to provide Brown medical assistance.
The undercover officers were not wearing body cameras and did not have walkie-talkies. Abalee Moran, the witness who filmed the incident while screaming at the officers, told WION.
After a few more minutes of physical struggle between the officers and Brown, his other arm is cuffed, and the officers pick him up and help him to an awaiting ambulance.
Police later determined Brown was not involved in the drug deal, reported CBS New York. He was not charged with a drug offense but was charged with resisting arrest, police said. However, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez told reporters he had declined to prosecute Brown on that charge.
“I just thank God that I’m alive. That’s all I can say,” Brown told CBS in an interview on Wednesday. “I know there’s a reason for everything and I know God’s watching and I want justice.”
Brown said his confrontation with police began in the shop as he was selecting wine.
“He said, ‘You’re under arrest,’ Brown said. “I remember being grabbed and shoved, and he said, ‘Don’t resist.’ And I said, ‘I’m not resisting.’
“They slammed me up against the glass, you know, repeatedly hitting me in the temple, in my head, you know? You see my eyes are black,” he added, then described being dragged across the broken glass.
His mother, Donna Brown, said she was worried about what would happen to her son next in police custody after seeing the video.
“I was like, you know what? I’m going back to the precinct to make sure he’s gonna be OK, because I felt like the police was going to beat him up some more,” she said. “Could you look at a video of your child being dragged like that? It’s disgusting. It really is. It’s disgusting. And they do it all the time, to our Black and Brown people, all the time.”
Some city leaders and civil rights organizations have called for the firing and arrest of the two officers.
“These officers should be suspended immediately and ultimately fired. Our NYPD must have a zero tolerance policy for police brutality,” said Brooklyn City Councilman Lincoln Restler.
At a protest outside the liquor store led by Black Lives Matter of Greater New York on Wednesday, New York City Council member Shahana Hanif said she had been in touch with the New York Police Commissioner’s office and the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office, calling for the officers’ arrest.
“It is not enough that their shields and guns have been taken,” she said. “We do not want them back on the streets because they are violent.”
Hawk Newsome of Black Lives Matter New York also called for the detectives to be fired and criminally charged, reported WION.
“Imagine you’re beating someone mercilessly and you’re caught on camera, and you don’t care,” he said. “You have the bravado to keep going.”
Moran told WION that the two officers did not immediately identify themselves as police when they walked into the liquor store, and then, “They just started attacking him. He was just trying to block the hits.”
Addressing the police at the rally, she said, “The way that you guys handled that situation was disgusting … and uncalled for. It was racist. It was unjust.”
Some people representing local law enforcement organizations pushed back on the criticism of the officers’ conduct by Mayor Mamdani and other city leaders.
“We don’t know why the mayor is bothering to call for an investigation when he has already rushed to condemn the NYPD members involved without knowing all the facts,” said Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry. “As we have said before, the mayor’s words matters. He should not publicly prejudge any incident involving police officers.”
“NYPD detectives put their lives on the line daily, doing the dangerous work politicians would never have the courage to do,” said Scott Munro, president of the Detective Endowment Association. “Narcotics detectives arrest you and tell you to put your hands behind your back and [you] don’t comply, what do you think happens? We deserve all the facts before anyone rushes to judgment,” he added.
Others online said Brown caused himself problems by resisting the police.
“So the violence stopped as soon as the resistance stopped,” wrote @sethhaberman on X.
“Don’t resist and things will go smoothly,” added @LeftismForU. “What would you suggest that they should have done instead? Tase him? Shoot him? Let go and get away with committing crimes?”
“Man shut the f— up, this was a case of mistaken identity,” replied @TheKycal. “Yall racist d—kriders even with a video in 4k of obvious brutality and use of force, violating someone’s rights still always got some stupid shi- to say. Cant wait until you and your loved ones are put in this situation.”
Brown has not yet publicly disclosed if he intends to pursue a legal claim against the police, but many people expressed online their belief that he should, or that a lawsuit is inevitable.
“Omg Lord Jesus he needs a lawyer immediately these people are evil,” wrote MamaGlammmm on TikTok.
“Another lawsuit paid by the tax payers smh,” said BAM.
On Thursday, the New York Daily News reported that one of the officers, Det. Volkan Maden has been accused numerous times of misconduct, including excessive force.
Maden, a 12-year veteran, has 12 substantiated allegations against him, including two in which he was charged by the Civilian Complaint Review Board and prosecuted in the NYPD trial room.
In that 2024 case, Maden was found guilty by an NYPD administrative judge and docked 13 days’ pay for conducting a street stop in which he handcuffed a man without good reason and then issued him a “retaliatory” summons for disorderly conduct, police records show.
Maden has also been named in two lawsuits over incidents that settled for $14,000, the Daily News reported. In one suit, the accuser said Maden and other officers arrested him for an issue involving a protective order, beat him up, and then released him before he was arraigned.
A pending lawsuit accuses Maden and other officers of repeatedly bumping the accuser’s dirt bike with a police car and then shocking him with a Taser and beating him.
The other officer involved in Brown’s arrest, Det. Michael Algerio, a 14-year veteran, has one substantiated CCRB complaint, for abuse of authority, police records show.