By Nathan Duke
A sergeant with the city Police Department has filed an $11 million lawsuit against Bayside’s 111th Precinct, alleging that the precinct held her overnight on an expired order of protection, her attorney said.
Pamela Lambright, 42, who works in NYPD Central Booking, filed the suit Aug. 13 in the federal court in Brooklyn. Ikiesha Al-Shabbaz, Lambright’s lawyer, said the sergeant, who is black, filed the suit for alleged violations of her constitutional rights and not on grounds of racial discrimination.
“There’s a race element, but that’s not something you can prove,” Al-Shabbaz said. “We’re suing for a violation of her constitutional rights. We want answers. You can’t prosecute a case if the Queens district attorney’s office is not on board. They held her for 10 hours just to humiliate her.”
The NYPD could not be reached for comment.
A spokesman for the precinct declined comment.
In May 2009, Lambright was told to bring her son, who attends Bayside High School, into the precinct on Northern Boulevard for a suspect lineup after a white student was robbed, Al-Shabbaz said. At the time, she told the precinct that she wanted to have a lawyer present, but was told to bring her son immediately for the lineup, according to her lawyer.
The robbery victim did not identify Lambright’s son, so he was freed.
The sergeant’s son had gotten an order of protection against his mother after she is alleged to have struck him, but the order had expired three months prior to her bringing him to the 111th Precinct for the lineup, Al-Shabbaz said.
Capt. Alfonso Pizzano is then alleged to have told Lambright that she violated the order of protection by bringing her son to the precinct, according to the suit.
The sergeant’s suit also names 12 other officers with the precinct and the city. Al-Shabbaz said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown’s office declined to prosecute the case at the time and that Lambright should therefore have not been held overnight.
She was held from 4 p.m. until the following morning and was placed in a room where she was given no food nor drink, Al-Shabbaz said. Lambright asked if she could make a phone call, but was told “it was not advisable,” the attorney said.
She was suspended for several days and her retirement was readjusted as a result, the suit alleges. But she never went before a judge, her attorney said.
According to the suit, Lambright’s attorney went to the precinct to show Pizzano that there was no order of protection in effect against the sergeant. But Pizzano failed to recognize the attorney, the suit says.
Lambright has worked with the NYPD for 11 years.
Reach reporter Nathan Duke by e-mail at nduke@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4566.
