State Sen. Kevin Parker says he can't let his personal issues distract the senate from important business in the aftermath of his latest arrest on an assault charge.
"I cannot allow my personal issues to distract the Senate from its important work in Albany,” Parker said in a statement. "I have agreed with Majority Leader Malcolm Smith to step aside as Majority Whip and Chair of my Committee until this matter is resolved. I will remain engaged in the important issues before the Senate, including mayoral control of our schools and the need for green jobs, and continue to work to create opportunity for the residents of the 21st District in these difficult economic times.
Parker was arrested in Brooklyn Friday night after a New York Post photographer told cops the hotheaded lawmaker attacked him for taking his picture.
Post photographer William Lopez staked out Parker Friday for a story about how he was in danger of losing his house to foreclosure. Lopez says that when the flash went off, Parker became enraged and began chasing him. "I turned around and ran and he was actually catching up to me,'' Lopez told the Post. "I turned a corner and ran half a block and he's chasing me the entire way.''
Then, according the photographer, the solidly built lawmaker gave up the chase and sat down on the hood of Lopez's car. When the photographer got behind the wheel, ``he reached in and grabbed my camera,'' Lopez said.
The two struggled in the front seat for the equipment. "He ripped the door panel off my car with his legs. He tore out my flash,'' he said. Lopez said the senator inflicted more than $1,000 in damage.
State Senate Majority Leader stripped Parker of his leadership position as majority whip and chairman of the Energy Committee when he heard about the allegations.
“Furthermore, payment of the stipend for his leadership position has been suspended," Smith said in a statement. "These are serious charges which demand the attention of the proper authorities, and my decision today will stand until resolution of the proceedings that Sen. Parker faces.”
Parker was charged with third degree criminal mischief after the incident outside his parents' home in the borough's Flatbush section. A woman who answered the phone at the home Saturday hung up on a reporter. Phone calls and e-mail messages to his offices in Brooklyn and Albany weren't immediately returned.
"He's a hothead, there's no getting around it," a police source told the Daily News after the incident.
Indeed. This isn't the first time Parker's temper has reared its ugly head. In 2005, the senator was arrested for punching a traffic agent. He was ordered to go anger-management courses at the time, but apparently they didn't do much good (if he ended up taking them at all, which isn't clear). That same year Parker's security pass for state buildings was temporarily suspended for repeated violations of security regulations. A former aide complained that Parker had once assaulted her, then threatened her for talking about the incident.
In September, one of Parker's aides charged that he pushed her during a dispute in his campaign headquarters. The aide, Lucretia John, told cops that her boss knocked $300 glasses off her face and stomped on them with his foot. Parker acknowledged that the two had a fight, but said that it was John who started it.
