Twitter Screenshots of a video showing a teen girl helping her friend escape NYPD custody.
An unidentified woman filmed herself freeing her sister from the back of an NYPD police car and posted it on Instagram. Police said the chaotic episode took place Wednesday, near the corner of E, 149th St. and Southern Blvd. in the Bronx.
The New York Daily News first found and posted the video on Thursday. The video starts out with the unidentified woman yelling as she circles around the side of the police SUV. She is yelling “Yeah! Yeah! You got it! You got it!” as the police sit in the driver and passenger seats.
The woman opens the driver’s side passenger door and screams “Run! Run! My sister out!” as her sibling escapes from police custody and runs down the street in handcuffs. Chaos ensues as police and teenagers are screaming and running in every direction. It’s hard to tell what exactly is happening as the video gets shaky when the videographer starts running.
The officers were responding to a report of an assault and had arrested the runaway suspect and a friend, both 14, before the girl in the video intervened and opened the police car’s door.
The NYPD 40th Precinct did not publicize the video for obvious reasons. The footage shows a momentary lapse in judgment on the part of the police officers.
Luckily, the suspect’s newfound freedom was short-lived. Officers witnessed the suspect running away and recaptured her a half-block away. You can see police running after her in the second half of the video. The 15-year-old girl who opened the door was arrested on charges of obstructing government administration.
Users on social media took the opportunity to take jabs at New York City Mayor Bill Deblasio. “Deblasio’s Safe city” replied one user, “I want to say unbelievable but this is DeBlasios supposed safe city.” Most other users were in disbelief that the woman was able to escape in the first place.
“One question, why the heck this woman, who isn’t a cop, opened the door of a police car to let that woman run loose? Even more, why isn’t the police car locked?” Another user remarked.
You can watch the full video below:
“MA SISTA OUT” Watch this woman brazenly open the door of an NYPD vehicle in the @NYPD40Pct and let a handcuffed prisoner free.
The suspects in the case are minors and their names will not be released by the NYPD.
Other People Have Escaped the NYPD in Similar Fashion
The NYPD seems to have an ongoing problem with detained suspects escaping police custody.
Last month, a person was shot on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. During the investigation, several suspects were detained for questioning. As one suspect waited in the back of an NYPD police SUV, Raymond Johnson, 28, somehow escaped while in handcuffs. Like the unidentifed woman above, he was quickly recaptured by police and charged with attempted murder, assault, criminal possession of a weapon, resisting arrest and escape.
A week earlier, a handcuffed man in custody on a state parole warrant escaped authorities in Queens, according to NBC New York. The man bolted out of the back of a police cruiser and was captured hours later. He was the third escaped suspect in October 2019.
In a separate incident from 2018, 24-year-old Tyrone Johnson was handcuffed and in the back of a moving squad car when he somehow broke free in Brownsville around 4 a.m. CBS New York reported at the time that the man was “arrested on previous drug and robbery charges on Osborn Street and Lott Avenue before his escape.”
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