Thread: Jury Rules Against Gypsy-Cab Driver in Rights Case

Jury Rules Against Gypsy-Cab Driver in Rights Case
ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS

A gypsy-cab driver’s claim that two New York City police officers violated his constitutional rights by reporting him to immigration authorities was rejected on Friday by a federal jury in Manhattan.

The cabdriver, Waheed Saleh of Yonkers, contended during a four-day trial in Federal District Court that a police officer in the Bronx had been harassing him by giving him tickets.

When he filed a complaint against the officer with the Civilian Complaint Review Board, Mr. Saleh said, the officer and his supervisor retaliated by telling immigration authorities that he had overstayed his visa. The authorities then began deportation proceedings.

Mr. Saleh argued that the officers, Sgt. Kishon Hickman, and his supervisor, Capt. Kevin Nicholson, had violated his First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances, and asked for unspecified damages. The jurors deliberated for about two hours before rejecting that claim. They found in favor of the city, which argued that far from harassing Mr. Saleh, the police were simply enforcing the law by giving him tickets for offenses like double-parking, disorderly conduct and driving an unlicensed taxi. “This case is about Mr. Saleh, a man who consistently violated the law — state, city and federal — and who was angry and frustrated at the police officers who enforced the law,â€

Mr. Saleh is appealing an order of deportation. His wife died of brain cancer in 1999, and he is supporting an 11-year-old son and a 9-year-old daughter who live in the occupied West Bank.

Send his illegal butt home already. These children need their father. Do they even know who he is I wonder.

He sounds like a ticking bomb ready to explode. Deport him before he explodes here. Remember family reunification? Go join your kids! If you can drive an illegal unlicensed cab here with impunity, then I'm sure you can do the same thing in the West Bank.

Whoo Hoo. So some NYers are smart. Maybe its starting to hit the fan in New York.

“I think it’s the wrong outcome,â€