Cops and sanitation workers roused three homeless men from their sleep in East Harlem more than two years ago and tossed their belongings in the trash, including medication, an inhaler, clothing and birth certificates.
Now the de Blasio administration has agreed to pay the men a total of $1,515 after lawyers threatened legal action against the city. The cold-hearted treatment was captured on video.
“I’ve been constantly abused,” Floyd Parks, 61, one of the three plaintiffs, told reporters Wednesday on the steps of City Hall.
“What they did was an atrocity,” he added. “Thank God for cameras. It showed the abuse that they had done to us.”
Parks said city workers took his birth certificate and Social Security card.
“They just took it and threw it in the dumpster,” he recalled, noting the cops threatened to toss him in jail if he didn’t comply with their demand to leave the area.
As part of the agreement, he was given $500 for his personal papers, blood pressure medication, inhaler, clothing and a silver cross necklace.
Parks landed on the streets in 2013 after he lost his job as an ambulette driver. He’s now living in temporary housing provided by a nonprofit organization
The New York Civil Liberties Union filed notices of claim in December 2015, indicating its intent to sue the city on behalf of the homeless men. The NYCLU alleged in court papers that the homeless trio had their items yanked away and discarded when they were forced to move in the middle of the night on Oct. 2, 2015.
Before the threatened legal action, the NYCLU obtained video of the incident in East Harlem through a Freedom of Information Law request.
The video from the Choir Academy Public School’s security cameras showed cops kicking the men awake, grabbing their belongings, and tossing the items into the garbage.
“Homeless people deserve to be treated with dignity like all New Yorkers, and the city acknowledged that it had no right to treat their few possessions like garbage,” NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said in a statement.
The three men were sleeping in a small area partly protected from the rain by an overhang at the public school on Madison Ave. near E. 127th St.
They were awakened by police with flashlights and sanitation workers in white hazmat suits, the video shows. As the men began to collect their belongings, the sanitation workers grabbed the items and threw them into a garbage truck.
Timmy Hall got $800 for his tossed birth certificate, Social Security card, shoes, jackets, a Steelers jersey and personal hygiene products.
And the third man, Jesus Morales, was given $215 to cover his birth certificate, Social Security card, clothing, jacket, shopping cart and personal hygiene products.
A City Hall official said the de Blasio administration was “pleased” with the agreement.
“The city respects the rights of our homeless New Yorkers and is pleased with the resolution of these claims,” mayoral spokesman Raul Contreras said. “We will continue to use all tools at our disposal to reduce homelessness across the five boroughs.”
Mayor de Blasio has struggled to stem the rising tide of homelessness.
As of Tuesday, 60,022 people were staying in various city-run shelters, cluster sites and hotels. That includes 23,312 children.
Advocates for the homeless have long argued that police can order people to move if they’re trespassing. But their property is supposed to be seized and vouchered for the owners to pick up later.
