The image in the cell phone video is difficult to make out. Recorded at around 11 p.m. one night last month, it shows at least three NYPD officers making an arrest in front of a shuttered hair salon after responding to a noise complaint in Flatbush, Brooklyn. What happened next has raised questions about how New York City police officers use force when a child is in harm’s way and how the city’s child welfare agency intervenes in child custody cases when a parent is arrested.
John Guerra said he was standing on Woodruff Avenue on April 24 with his 20-month-old son and other adults and children from the neighborhood when officers responded to what the NYPD later reported was a 311 noise complaint. The song on the stereo, according to Guerra and two witnesses, was “Baby Shark.”
“It was a baby song,” he told Gothamist.
A police complaint alleges Guerra’s friend, Latisha Maldonado, refused to turn over her audio speaker. When they went to arrest her, Guerra can be seen in the phone video approaching the police while holding his son, yelling at them to stop.
“You’re doing too much, bro,” Guerra can be heard saying. Officers later alleged that Guerra said, “I’ll break your shit, pussy,”
Then, the video shows that one of the officers turns and pushes Guerra twice, sending him and the child backwards. Additional footage obtained by Gothamist from the hair salon’s security camera shows five officers then tussling with Guerra. He said the officers later pushed him and the toddler against the metal grating on the business next door. Guerra says the officers kicked him repeatedly before his son was eventually taken from him by police. Guerra was also arrested.
John Guerra and his son.
Guerra’s attorney Omar Russo filed a motion on May 3 claiming that Guerra was falsely arrested and subjected to excessive force.
“Officers physically engaged claimant [Guerra], with no regard for the fact that his small child was in his arms. The defendant officers pushed claimant, causing he and his son to be lunged backward into the metal grate of the storefront hitting their heads and backs,” Guerra’s claim reads. “At no time had claimant committed a crime, resisted arrest, or provided any justification for the defendant officers’ conduct.”
Guerra was charged with disorderly conduct, obstruction of governmental administration and endangering the welfare of a child, according to court records.
Police records allege that Guerra ignored officers’ orders to step back and pushed one of the responding officers, Victor Kwok.
“There’s kids over here. Don’t touch me. I got my son,” a police complaint alleges Guerra said to officers.
It later adds, “Kwok pushed defendant back and repeatedly stated, step back, get back.”
After reviewing the videos, Johanna Miller, director of the Education Policy Center at the New York Civil Liberties Union, criticized the officers’ use of force in the situation, noting that they could have issued summonses for Guerra’s charges rather than arrest him while he was with his son.
“Any human being who has any trace of humanity would know that this is not the right way to go about this,” Miller said. “The fact that this whole thing started with a noise complaint is a travesty. Why is it even the NYPD that goes to a noise complaint? They only have one tool, and that’s force.”
“My son was crying at the top of his lungs.”
The NYPD did not respond to questions about how or why officers used force against Guerra while he was holding the young boy, or how many officers were involved in the incident.
After his arrest, Guerra said he and his son were taken to the 70th Precinct in separate cars, despite his attempts to leave the child with friends and neighbors. Guerra claims officers kept his son at the precinct for more than 10 hours.
“I felt broken,” Guerra said. “My son was crying at the top of his lungs.”
The NYPD did not respond to a detailed list of questions about how long the child was kept at the precinct and who was responsible for his care.
In addition to the motion Guerra’s attorney filed earlier this month, in advance of a potential lawsuit, Guerra and Maldonado said they had also filed complaints with the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board, which investigates cases of police misconduct.
Records show Kwok, the officer who pushed Guerra, has received two past complaints, one in 2019 for use of force and another in 2021 for refusing to provide his shield number. Neither allegation was substantiated because the complainants either withdrew their complaint or stopped cooperating with investigators.
Gothamist was unable to reach Kwok by phone.
Text messages reviewed by Gothamist between Guerra and a caseworker show Guerra’s son was later turned over to the city’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), which eventually gave him to his mother, Precious Pickett, who records show lives in Arlington, Texas, setting off a custody battle between the separated couple.
According to the NYPD patrol guide, the arrest of a parent alone does not require officers to contact ACS, and “should not be made unless reasonable cause exists that the child is abused, neglected or maltreated, or an alternate caregiver cannot be located.”
Police did not respond to questions about when and why ACS was called, but Andrew Zahnd, a staff defense attorney for Center for Family Representation said police can often make their own judgements about a child’s presumed safety under someone’s care.
“One could very easily see the police attempting to add an endangering the welfare of a child charge if the child is caught up in an altercation involving an arrest, even if the underlying reason for an arrest has nothing to do with the child,” Zahnd said.
Court records show a hearing was held over the child’s custody on May 1. Guerra said Pickett attended virtually, while he appeared in person. Records show Pickett had an attorney, but Guerra was not assigned one, although he said he had requested representation.
Guerra said the boy’s mother was granted full custody and he was stripped of visitation rights in a Dallas County hearing on May 8 that he could not attend in-person due to his open criminal case in New York from this arrest, and was not permitted to attend virtually by the Texas judge.
