WILLIAMSBURG – A Brooklyn cop says an unruly subway fare-beater she was trying to subdue pounced on her and delivered a career-ending injury after her NYPD-issued Mace Pepper Spray failed to work.
Officer Brenderline Blake, 40, is now suing the city, accusing the police department of putting her in danger by assigning her a dud of a Mace can.
Blake, who filed the lawsuit last week in Brooklyn Supreme Court, claims that while on duty on June 26, 2010, she tried to arrest the scofflaw at the Marcy Avenue subway station on the J Line.
When the suspect resisted, she squeezed off her can of Mace, but nothing happened, the lawsuit says. The malfunction allowed the suspect to attack Blake, breaking her wrist, according to the lawsuit.
“If hers had worked, this wouldn’t have happened,” her lawyer, Joseph Decolator, told DNAinfo New York.
Decolator said after the attack, Blake’s partner was able to rush over and spray his own Mace can — which worked — to subdue the suspect.
Blake left the police department on three-quarters disability pay because of her injury.
The NYPD said Blake is no longer a member of the department and declined to comment on pending litigation.
The city Law Department said it had not yet received a copy of the lawsuit.
Blake had sued the city in 2010 in regard to the injury, but an appellate court ordered her to resubmit the lawsuit with additional allegations.
