A man who was beaten and mistakenly arrested by two narcotics detectives in a Brooklyn liquor store has taken a step toward suing the Police Department over what he said was a violent assault that violated his rights.
The man, Timothy Brown, filed a notice of claim with the city comptroller’s office on Monday, two weeks after videos of the detectives punching, kicking and beating him spread widely on social media. Mr. Brown sued the city and the Police Department, including the two detectives — as well as a handful of their supervisors.
The claim marks the first step on the road to filing a lawsuit against the city.
Mr. Brown’s claim states that he was beaten and then wrongfully arrested and imprisoned, leaving him with a black eye and injuries to his leg, as well as with severe emotional distress. It also claims that the encounter was part of a larger pattern of misconduct within the Brooklyn narcotics team that carried out the arrest.
“I felt humiliated, disrespected, embarrassed, and I was brutally beaten for no reason,” Mr. Brown said at a news conference in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday, a metal cane clutched to his chest. “I will never heal from this.”
Mr. Brown was joined by his lawyer, Derek Sells, of the Cochran Firm, along with the firm’s chief executive, Mina Malik. Mr. Brown’s mother, Donna Brown, sat beside her son, wiping tears from her eyes as he spoke.
With the claim filed, a settlement could be reached between the city and Mr. Brown, or a lawsuit could follow. Mr. Sells said Mr. Brown is seeking $100 million from the city.
A spokesman for the Police Department said on Tuesday that the agency does not comment on pending litigation. A spokesman for City Hall also declined to comment.
Footage of the beating and arrest earlier this month stunned New York City leaders and lawmakers. In the videos, the two detectives, Volkan Maden and Michael P. Algerio, both of whom work on the North Brooklyn narcotics unit, can be seen throwing Mr. Brown across the liquor store, into a case of wine bottles and onto the floor as they struggle to handcuff him.
The Police Department has said the officers were part of a team executing an undercover drug sweep in the Brooklyn neighborhood and mistook Mr. Brown for a target of that operation, in part because of his clothing resembled that in a description of a suspect they were seeking. They later determined he was not involved. Mr. Brown has insisted in his filing that he was indeed uninvolved in the drug deal and had committed no crimes.
The department has already initiated an internal disciplinary process against the two officers; they have been stripped of their guns and shields and are under investigation. Last week, the department said it had also launched a three-month review of its entire narcotics division and disbanded the team responsible for the drug sweep, a small group within its narcotics unit in Brooklyn.
At an unrelated news conference last week, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said that he and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch took “immediate and decisive steps to ensure accountability” in the episode and to address the “larger number” of concerns by New Yorkers about the unit’s operations.
Monday’s filing says that the encounter began at 4 p.m. on April 14 when Mr. Brown, a licensed security guard who works as a home health aide, left work and went to a liquor store on the corner of Hoyt and Baltic Streets.
While inside, he was approached by the two detectives who seized him and placed him under arrest without a warrant and without “adequately” identifying themselves, the filing says. Mr. Brown did not resist, but was met with immediately met with “gratuitous and excessive force,” the claim says.
Both detectives, as well as several other officers in the unit, have been accused of misconduct in the past. According to records from the Civilian Complaint Review Board, a police oversight agency, there have been seven complaints filed against Detective Algerio, including for physical force, one of which was substantiated, and 12 against Detective Maden, five of which were substantiated, records show.
On Tuesday, Ms. Malik, the Cochran Firm executive, called the two detectives “bad apples” that “spoil the entire bunch.”
“I support police officers who do their jobs well,” she said. “In this case, it didn’t happen.”
Nate Schweber contributed reporting.
Maia Coleman is a reporter for The Times covering the New York Police Department and criminal justice in the New York area.
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