New York Daily News – by BARBARA ROSS, CORKY SIEMASZKO
The NYPD has been hit with a federal lawsuit by a Brooklyn family that claims cops bullied a diabetic teen who was denied insulin while falsely locked up on attempted murder charges.
Richard Gonzalez’s family said the only evidence cops had to tie the 14-year-old special-ed student to an April shooting at Foot Locker in Bushwick were eyewitnesses who told them the gunman was named “Richie.”
When police got the frightened boy alone in a men’s room at the 83rd Precinct, “with balled fists” they “tried to manipulate him into confessing,” the family’s lawyer Carmen Giordano claims in court papers filed in Brooklyn federal court.
“You going down,” one of them said, according to the papers.
Gonzalez’s condition is so serious he wears an electronic pump programmed to administer doses of insulin every hour, the papers state.
But Giordano said they removed the pump and threatened to throw the boy’s mom, Divian Ramos, out of the stationhouse when she objected to police questioning her son without her present.
While Ramos was later allowed to bring her son food and test his blood sugar levels, Giordano said once the teenager was charged with attempted murder she was not allowed anywhere near him.
By the time Gonzalez appeared before a judge, his sugar levels were so high he was gagging, dizzy, weak and nauseous, the papers state.
The accused teenager, who repeatedly denied shooting anyone, was transferred to two hospitals over the next few days and at one point spent three nights sleeping handcuffed to a bed.
When Gonzalez could not come up with $75,000 bail, he was shipped off to a juvenile facility from which he was transported to two more hospitals — without his parent’s knowledge — after his blood sugar soared.
Ultimately, the court papers say, the Brooklyn District Attorney dropped the charge against Gonzalez after learning that he was arrested solely on the grounds that his name was Richie — and that he was a Facebook friend of the victim, 15-year-old Isaiah Martinez.
It later turned out that the real “Richie” had been treated on the night of the shooting after he was stabbed.
Now Gonzalez has been branded a snitch in the neighborhood and fearing for his safety his mom wants the city to move them to another subsidizing housing site.
The family is also seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for false arrest, malicious prosecution, endangering the teenager’s health, and negligence.
There was no immediate response to the lawsuit from the NYPD.
Gonzalez was arrested after Martinez was shot in the foot for allegedly trying to cut in line at a Knickerbocker Ave. store to buy a pair of $250 Kanye West-designed Nike Air Foamposite Pro “Yeezy” sneakers.
His family contends Gonzalez was asleep his bed at the time of the shooting.
Giordano said the teenager should not have been arrested in the first place.
“They focused on Richie exclusively and disregarded very strong evidence that’s it wasn’t him,” the lawyer said.
Even the victim, 15-year-old Isaiah Martinez, told cops they nabbed the wrong Richie.
“They put a lot of pressure on the kid who was shot to change his story,” Giordano said. “They were trying to make the sneaker fit when it was not made to fit.”
bross@nydailynews.com