EXCLUSIVE: Blind veteran says NYPD cops roughed him up and never identified themselves as police, files lawsuit

Claude Ruffin is blind — and so were the cops who never identified themselves as police when they wrestled him to the ground, a lawsuit claims.

Ruffin, a 62-year-old disabled veteran who hasn’t been able to see since 2001, was celebrating New Year’s Eve inside a Long Island City shelter in 2014 when security called police claiming that he had kicked a door.

The officers went to Ruffin’s room inside the Borden Avenue Veterans Residence and found him sitting on his bed, wearing his dark-colored glasses.

“I’m not expecting for police to come,” the Mississippi native told the Daily News. “Two people grab my arms. But I was cool. I walked outside with them, but then they began to manhandle me!”

Ruffin pulled his arm away from one cop, sparking a fight.

As the former plumber wrestled on the ground with his captors, he still didn’t know they were cops — until he made a startling discovery.

“I went to get up and I put my hand on one of their guns,” Ruffin said. “I said, ‘Oh, this is the f---ing police!’”

“They should have identified themselves,” he said. “The least they could have done was that.”

Ruffin was charged with resisting arrest and assault on a police officer. Two other shelter residents, Shabazz Ali and Henry Davis, were also arrested as they ran to Ruffin’s aid, according to the suit filed last month. Davis was pepper-sprayed and nearly shocked with a stun-gun as he struggled with officers.

 

“We kept yelling, ‘You’re dealing with a blind man! You’re dealing with a blind man!’” Ali recalled.

“No one said ‘I’m the police,’” Shabazz said. “This was right after that (Akai Gurley) shooting in the hallway. A few months earlier (Garner) was choked to death over cigarettes. With all of that in the news you would think they would give people some kind of courtesy, particularly a blind man.”

The charges against Ruffin were ultimately dismissed. Shelter workers admitted he never kicked the door, but bumped into it because he was walking around without his cane.

But, with the charges hanging over his head, Ruffin was unable to secure permanent housing, attorney David Thompson of Stecklow & Thompson said.

“If a uniformed police officer walks up to me, I know I am dealing with a police officer instantly — because I can see him or her,” Thompson said. “For someone like Mr. Ruffin, he is not going to know that he is dealing with police unless they verbally say so.”

“(Police) have to identify themselves and they have to do it in a way a blind person can trust,” Thompson said. “Saying that they’re a cop is step one, but it doesn’t necessarily do enough. This was not an emergency situation where they couldn’t take off their badge, hand it to him and say, ‘Feel this.’”

In the suit, Ruffin, Ali and Davis claim they were falsely arrested and their civil rights were violated.

It also charges the city “has failed to provide any written guidelines to police officers for proper interactions with blind people.”

“We kept yelling, ‘You’re dealing with a blind man! You’re dealing with a blind man!’” Ali recalled.

“No one said ‘I’m the police,’” Shabazz said. “This was right after that (Akai Gurley) shooting in the hallway. A few months earlier (Garner) was choked to death over cigarettes. With all of that in the news you would think they would give people some kind of courtesy, particularly a blind man.”

The charges against Ruffin were ultimately dismissed. Shelter workers admitted he never kicked the door, but bumped into it because he was walking around without his cane.

But, with the charges hanging over his head, Ruffin was unable to secure permanent housing, attorney David Thompson of Stecklow & Thompson said.

“If a uniformed police officer walks up to me, I know I am dealing with a police officer instantly — because I can see him or her,” Thompson said. “For someone like Mr. Ruffin, he is not going to know that he is dealing with police unless they verbally say so.”

“(Police) have to identify themselves and they have to do it in a way a blind person can trust,” Thompson said. “Saying that they’re a cop is step one, but it doesn’t necessarily do enough. This was not an emergency situation where they couldn’t take off their badge, hand it to him and say, ‘Feel this.’”

In the suit, Ruffin, Ali and Davis claim they were falsely arrested and their civil rights were violated.

It also charges the city “has failed to provide any written guidelines to police officers for proper interactions with blind people.”