Bratton: 2 Officers Suspended After Police Capture Suspect Who Escaped Custody In Lower Manhattan
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A prisoner escaping from NYPD custody for the sixth time this year has once again sparked the wrath of the department – from the commissioner on down.
As CBS2's Steve Langford reported, police Commissioner Bill Bratton said the two NYPD officers responsible for the escape have been suspended for 30 days, after the ran off in handcuffs and bolted into the subway in TriBeCa on Thursday evening.
"We cannot tolerate it, and needless to say, that I am not pleased," Bratton said.
The suspect, identified as 20-year-old Barry Tune, was recaptured overnight at an Administration for Child Services facility in Brooklyn. Police originally identified Tune as Masgayo Cruz.
Police said Tune was first arrested Thursday night at a Gap store in Lower Manhattan, allegedly for shoplifting. He's accused of stealing $150 worth of merchandise – a couple of pairs of jeans and a jacket – from the company's Financial District location on Broadway, WCBS 8880's Ginny Kosola reported.
Chief of Patrol James O'Neill said Tune feigned an illness while being transported to the First Precinct by the officers. When the officers stopped to help him and opened the door, Tune jumped out of the backseat of the police cruiser and ran, O'Neill said.
"When he was initially put into the car, he was handcuffed," O'Neill told reporters, including CBS2's Langford and 1010 WINS' Roger Stern. "A very scrawny individual, he managed to somehow work one of the cuffs off, either as soon as he got out of the car or in the back of the car."
Tune then ran into a subway station, police said. The manhunt shut down subway service near Franklin Street and West Broadway.
Power was also turned off to the 1, 2 and 3 trains – and service was halted below 14th Street on all three lines – as police searched for Tune, who they thought might have been hiding in an underground tunnel.
Police came up with a phone number from a previous medical emergency involving the suspect, which traced back to the address of the group home in Brooklyn. Sure enough, officers found the suspect there just after midnight Friday morning.
The young man was back in custody Friday evening, charged with petit larceny and escape. And when it came to the officers blamed for his escape, Bratton was livid.
"What we have here is a significant neglect of duty," Bratton said. "Compounding it was the tremendous upset to the public, shutting those train lines down."
The two officers have been identified as Officer Leoncio Montezuma, a 9-year veteran of the NYPD, and Officer Ruben Salce-Alemam, a 5-year veteran of the NYPD. Both are assigned to the First Precinct.
Bratton said the officers will be "severely disciplined." He said their guns and badges have been taken away and they are completely off the streets, and they will have to go for retraining before returning to duty.
"There is no more significant responsibility of a police officer than the safeguarding of a prisoner," Bratton said. "To keep the prisoner safe and also to keep the public safe from them and last night, two of our officers failed that responsibility."
This case is the sixth prisoner to have slipped out of NYPD custody since June.
On June 23, Tareek Arnold escaped from detectives in the 32nd Precinct in Harlem. Surveillance video showed him running down the street in handcuffs while detectives chased after him.
Arthur Collins escaped from the 25th Precinct, also in East Harlem, on July 24 after he got out of his holding cell when he was being booked on a burglary charge.
On Aug, 16, Austin Stevenson, 25, was taken into custody in East Harlem on suspicion of criminal trespass. As he was led to the 23rd Precinct station house, police said Stevenson pushed his escorting officer and took off.
On Aug. 30, Tiffany Neumann, 23, fled from a lower Manhattan hospital after slipping out of her handcuffs. Police called the incident embarrassing and said the officer who was supposed to be guarding Neumann had been suspended.
Gerald Brooks, 39, was being taken to the 73rd Precinct station house on Oct. 20 when he escaped police custody in East New York, Brooklyn. His hands were cuffed behind his back when he pushed a police officer to the ground and ran off, police said.
