Complaint #200513049,
October 31, 2005

Summary

On October 31, 2005, at approximately 11:30AM, [redacted] was at her mother and father's home, where she resides, at [redacted] in Staten Island. She heard her dog, a Black Lab and Pitbull mix, barking. She looked outside and observed a hand reaching over the fence. Her dog is kept on a long leash that is attached to a tree; the dog is restrained, but allowed to be close to the fence. [redacted] exited her house and approached the fence. At that point, [redacted] noticed that the individual whose hand was over the fence was holding an object. [redacted] was not certain what it was, but she guessed that it was mace or pepper spray. [redacted] then saw two uniformed police officers, a male and a female, standing outside her fence near her dog. (The officers were identified through the investigation as PO Eric Dym and PO Michelle Rodriguez.) PO Dym told [redacted] "move the dog away from the fence or I'll arrest you." [redacted] told PO Dym that he did not have to spray the dog with pepper spray, although she did not observe her dog being sprayed. She said this because she believed the individual holding the spray can to be PO Dym. She told PO Dym that she was going to move the dog away from the fence. She moved the dog into the house. She also informed the officers that she was going to call the NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau for the threat of arrest. She did call IAB later that day. When she returned from bringing the dog inside, PO Dym told [redacted] that they had received a number of complaints about the residents of [redacted] [redacted] stated that she has made a number of complaints to the police about a neighbor with whom she and her family had been having problems. She stated that because of this, she is harassed by police officers in her neighborhood, who call her unspecified names.
[redacted] was not able to provide a detailed description of the officers because the officers were standing behind a tall fence that was mostly solid and not easily seen through. The officers were both white or pale skinned.... Read report for details.