A Brooklyn woman who was previously arrested for credit card theft and identity theft will receive $625,000 from the city after a wild confrontation with NYPD in a Brooklyn welfare office went viral.
Jazmine Headley’s confrontation with NYPD cops was captured on cell phone video that went viral online in 2018.
Many sympathized with the 23-year-old single mom after she threw herself on the floor when security guards asked her to leave the welfare office.
Headley had taken a day off from her job as a security guard to go to the food stamp office in Brooklyn to ask why daycare vouchers for her 1-year-old son were cut off.
The food stamp office was crowded and Headley took a seat on the floor with her baby son, Damone.
Human Resources officers asked Headley to stand up because she was blocking a hallway and arguing with others in the office. When she refused to leave, staffers called police.
Cellphone video showed an officer trying to take Headley’s baby son away from her as she rolled around on the floor screaming.
Headley filed lawsuits against the city and the NYPD, which settled out of court for $625,000. Her attorney will get as much as 40% of the settlement.
“Ms. Headley had been humiliated, assaulted, physically injured, threatened with a taser, brutally separated from her son, handcuffed, arrested, and jailed,” her attorney stated in court documents.
The lawyer claimed Damone “displayed changed behaviors,” after the incident, including “a diminished appetite, separation anxiety, and difficulty sleeping, and he became more withdrawn.”
In addition to the taxpayer-funded $625,000, Headley also received $37,000 in donations raised by a GoFundMe page.
The city’s mayor and other prominent officials apologized to Headley.
“We hope this settlement brings Ms. Headley and her family a degree of closure,” said Mayor de Blasio’s spokesperson Olivia Lapeyrolerie.
