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VIDEO: NYPD Reviewing Teen's Arrest After Sunset Park Restaurant Brawl

By Nikhita Venugopal | November 25, 2015 3:01pm | Updated on November 25, 2015 6:07pm
 A surveillance video taken Nov. 21 shows police officers making an arrest at a Sunset Park restaurant. The NYPD is reviewing the incident after El Grito de Sunset Park claimed that the teen had been assaulted.
A surveillance video taken Nov. 21 shows police officers making an arrest at a Sunset Park restaurant. The NYPD is reviewing the incident after El Grito de Sunset Park claimed that the teen had been assaulted.
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El Grito de Sunset Park

SUNSET PARK — The NYPD said it is investigating a Sunset Park restaurant's surveillance video that a police-watch group says shows a teen being assaulted during an arrest Saturday night.

The brawl unfolds in a 13-minute video taken from multiple surveillance cameras at El Tesoro Ecuatoriano at Fifth Avenue near 41st Street. The video, posted on Facebook by El Grito de Sunset Park, took place Nov. 21 just before 10 p.m. during the Miguel Cotto and Canelo Alvarez boxing match, according to the video and Dennis Flores, founder of El Grito police watch group. 

 

On Saturday, November 21st 2015, NYPD officers of the 72nd Precinct in Sunset Park Brooklyn assaulted and falsely...

Posted by El Grito De Sunset Park on Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Around the 5:05-minute mark on the video, 18-year-old Kevin Cuzco can be seen exchanging words with a plainclothes police officer on the sidewalk, according to Flores.

That results in a physical altercation between the officer and Cuzco, whose family owns the restaurant and works as a cook there, Flores said.

The melee then moves back into the restaurant, where Cuzco is taken to the ground and arrested by three officers, the video shows. 

An NYPD spokeswoman said in an email to DNAinfo New York that the video was under internal review.

Cuzco and one other restaurant worker were arrested on charges of obstructing governmental administration. Their cases were adjourned in contemplation of dismissal (ACD), meaning that the cases will be dismissed and sealed if they do not get arrested again by their next court day on May 20, 2016, a spokeswoman for the Brooklyn District Attorney's office said.

Civil rights attorney Norman Siegel called the video "very troubling" and said it raised questions of false arrest and excessive force. 

Following the holiday weekend, Siegel, who will likely be retained as Cuzco's attorney, said he plans to review his client's legal options.

Two other patrons were also arrested during the incident. 

Cuzco suffered a gash on his head and required five staples, according to Flores. He also suffered bruising, an injury on his lip and pain throughout his body. 

Last year, a police officer in Sunset Park was suspended after a video showed him kicking a street vendor in the back. Soon after, another video showed a police officer shoving a pregnant woman.