By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
BATTERY PARK CITY — The city is investigating a fight that broke out Saturday afternoon between a Battery Park City resident and a Parks Enforcement Patrol officer, the Parks Department said Monday.
The resident, Adam Pratt, reportedly suffered head and rib injuries after a dispute with a female PEP officer escalated into a physical altercation, according to the Parks Department, authorities and reports.
The Parks Department said it was unclear who started the fight, which took place on South End Avenue about noon on Saturday, but that at some point, Pratt struck the officer.
Pratt told the blog BatteryPark.TV, which first reported the incident, that the female officer hit him first when he tried to take a picture of her during their argument.
Many PEP officers quickly converged on the scene of the fight, where they wrestled Pratt to the ground and cuffed him, witnesses told BatteryPark.TV.
PEP officers then led Pratt into an ambulance, which took him to Bellevue Hospital for psychiatric evaluation, an FDNY spokesman said. Pratt became "violent" with the EMS personnel in the ambulance and was classified as an "emotionally disturbed person," an FDNY spokesman said.
As Pratt was being led, handcuffed, into the ambulance, he shouted, "This is sick," according to a video posted on YouTube.
Pratt was issued a summons for disorderly conduct, the Parks Department said.
Pratt, who was resting at his Battery Park City home Monday, declined to comment, saying he was having difficulty breathing and walking.
Pratt told BatteryPark.TV that the PEP officers have a "vendetta" against him because he has been taking pictures of them sleeping rather than working and committing other offenses over the past two years. He has also reportedly argued with PEP officers about the neighborhood's leash laws for his pet dogs.
The EMS that responded to the scene on Saturday also examined a PEP officer who had minor injuries, the FDNY spokesman said.
Officers from the 1st Precinct responded as well, but they determined that the PEP officers had the situation under control and they left without making any arrests, an NYPD spokesman said.
"We will…take further steps to look into this," the Parks Department said in a statement Monday, adding that the city would do an independent investigation.
