If the NYPD is going to start enforcing it's pooper-scooper laws, this seems like an odd way to do it.
According to the Daily News, Ann Stanczyk, a 49-year-old Queens woman, says that she was beaten and harassed after talking back to the NYPD when they forced her to pick up dog poo that wasn't from her dog.
She claims that two cops stopped her while she was walking her dog, Psotka—which is Polish for “prankster”—near her hometown of Rockaway Beach. She says that the cops ordered her to pick up her dog's droppings, even though her dog hadn't left any.
"They saw my dog and they said I didn't clean up," said Stanczyk to the Daily News. "I said, 'No, she only pee.' They, of course, not agree with me and I say, 'Show me. Where is it?'"
The officers found dog feces nearby, she said.
"Pick it up," she said one cop ordered her. "I got scared. I pick up. I said, 'It's cold, not belong to my dog.' When I smiled and said I didn't do anything, that made them very upset."
After that, she was arrested and handcuffed. When she tried to use her foot to prevent the police from closing the door on their patrol car, she says, the cops started to beat her.
Local
"I get scared to death," she said. "I started to scream, 'My dog! My dog!' They punch me in my face. They punch me in my breast. They punch me in my stomach."
According to the court papers that were gathered by the News, Stanczyk was officially accused of, "causing a ruckus by yelling at the officers to leave her alone.” The case was adjourned until May, and it will be thrown out as long as she isn’t arrested for any other crimes.
She plans to sue, having filed a complaint with the Civilian Complaint Review Board, and she says that since the incident, she has been afraid to leave her apartment.
"I call my friends and beg them to go out with me,” she says. “I feel better to stay home all the time."
