Suit: Cops Forced Mentally Challenged Woman to Wear "I'm Dope" Shirt
A new lawsuit in the Bronx claims that two cops in the 52nd precinct forced a mentally handicapped janitor, who had been working at the station for 23 years, to wear a shirt that said "I'm dope" so they could photograph and ridicule her. In a deposition, the woman says that she didn't know what the shirt said.
Hannah Biggan claims in the suit that the two cops—Nicholas Konner and John Repetti—brought the shirt to her one morning in May of 2013, saying that it was too big for one of them, and that they'd like to give it to her. Biggan says she then put it in her locker. Later, Konner and Repetti came up to Biggan, asked her to put the shirt on, then proceeded to ridicule her. From the New York Post:
Biggan put the shirt in her locker and went back to work — not knowing she was being ridiculed, the suit says. Later that afternoon, Konner and Repetti allegedly told her to get the shirt and put it on.
Repetti then used his cellphone to snap a photo of her standing alongside Konner, as both men laughed, the suit says.
When the men asked Biggan if she could read the shirt, she told them that she couldn't read. She said she tried to read the words but she couldn't. When she went home later, wearing the shirt, her sister Maryann told her what it meant:
"When I got home, my sister Maryann told me what it said . . . And I got really depressed and angry at them for doing that to me because I've never done anything bad to them."
Biggan grew depressed after the incident, and was suicidal, causing her to take leave from her job for so long that she was no longer getting paid. The lawsuit claims there was discrimination against her and implicates the city, the two cops, and her supervisor, who reportedly did nothing after the incident was reported.
[Image via New York Post]