City Housing puts workers in bright vests in fear of NYPD shootings

New York Post – by Larry Celona and Bob Fredericks

Workers who fix elevators in the city’s housing projects have been ordered to wear bright-orange vests by supervisors calling NYPD cops “trigger-happy,’’ sources told The Post.

The edict came down from city Housing Authority brass after an officer fatally shot an unarmed man in the stairwell of a Brooklyn complex and other cops accidentally pulled a gun on a maintenance crew, sources said.  

“[The elevator workers] were basically told the reason was because of recent incidents where cops had pulled a gun on a caretaker and a supervisor on the roof of a housing project,” a source said.

“No one got shot, but they also referred to the cop shooting and were told, ‘We’re doing this for your protection. Your lives are in jeopardy, and we don’t want you to get hurt,’ ” the source said

One Housing boss told his workers that the move was for their own good because cops are “trigger happy,’’ the sources said.

The workers also were told to wear their official IDs around their necks.

“They said that in case a cop stops you, we don’t want you reaching around in back pocket That could be another reason for a cop to shoot you,” a source said.

The workers bristled at the characterization of cops as trigger-happy and said they do not want to display their IDs because they don’t want gang members or criminals who live or hang out in the projects knowing their names, the source added.

The new orders come after Officer Peter Liang, 27, fired his weapon when he was startled in an unlit stairwell in the Louis Pink Houses in East New York on Nov. 20 during a routine patrol, killing unarmed father of two Akai Gurley.

A spokeswoman for the Housing Authority said that the new measures were just part of a general safety concern.

“The issuance of the safety vests was one action taken to increase safety for elevator personnel through our ongoing ‘Safety in Motion’ initiative,” the spokeswoman said.

“Although not tied to any particular incident, we hope that this simple action will further protect these hardworking employees and allow them to be easily identified when needed,” she said.

Several workers spotted recently wearing the vests at the Pink Houses declined to comment, saying they didn’t want to get into trouble with their bosses.

http://nypost.com/2015/05/25/city-housing-puts-workers-in-bright-vests-in-fear-of-nypd-shootings/