Cops really going overboard

From the Village Voice:

Earlier today, right around the time that the City Council was holding a hearing on the NYPD's controversial stop and frisk practices, cops slapped a Brooklyn man with a trespassing charge for standing under an awning to get out of the rain.

Vincent Mouzon, a 55-year-old telephone pollster who lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant, tells the Voice he was on his way back to a local laundromat after mailing three letters when he paused under an awning outside an abandoned building on Malcolm X Boulevard.

When the rain abated, Mouzon resumed walking. About a block later, police officers from the 81st Precinct stopped and questioned him. The 81st Precinct, by the way, is the same station house that was the subject of the Village Voice's widely read NYPD Tapes series.

"I showed them my identification and explained what I was doing," he says. "I even opened the laundry bag for them."

Mouzon says he told the officers that the ticket would be thrown out of court. "I told them, 'look I know about you guys, I read the Village Voice article, and I know your precinct, and I know you guys are trying to make your quota,'" he says.

"Here's a guy who was absolutely doing nothing, and now I have to go to criminal court and take a day off of work to deal with it," he says. "I was just standing there seeking refuge, and it boggles my mind that this could happen. This doesn't inspire trust in the Police Department. It's such a waste of time and taxpayer's money."