Video from a police body camera shows the moment an NYPD lieutenant was dragged across a Brooklyn street early Friday — allegedly by a reputed gang member who’d been set free in an attempted-murder case.
The NYPD posted the 14-second clip on its official Twitter page, along with a Post report about the mayhem that Takim Newsom allegedly committed after fleeing the scene.
“Early this morning, officers from the @NYPD71Pct conducted a car stop,” the department tweeted.
“During their investigation, officers determined the driver was not fit to drive and asked him to step out of the vehicle. That’s when he put the car in reverse, running over the lieutenant.”
The unidentified officer suffered a back injury and bruises to his elbows and knees, and was taken to NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn for treatment, according to sources.
About 90 minutes after the 3:30 a.m. incident on Rockaway Parkway near Willmohr Street in Brownsville, Newson allegedly broke into a house in Far Rockaway, Queens, where his girlfriend and her mother have been living in the basement.
After allegedly terrorizing a 66-year-old woman and her son, the ex-con and reputed member of the Edgemere Crew gang allegedly stole a green Jaguar S-Type sedan whose owner left it running nearby to warm up before heading to work, sources said.
Newson was finally captured by cops in Suffolk County, Long Island, and faces charges that include assaulting a police officer, according to the NYPD.
He was nabbed at his father’s house, sources said.
Newson was free to allegedly embark on the crime spree because rookie Queens Judge Denise Johnson denied a prosecution request to lock him up without bail after cops tracked him to his mother’s house in Rocky Mount, N.C., and busted him in a Valentine’s Day bar shooting in Queens.
During Newson’s April 7 arraignment in that case, his defense lawyer said $50,000 bail would be appropriate but Johnson — who was rated “not approved by the city Bar Association before her November election — released him without requiring him to post surety.
In a prepared state, Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch said, “Judge Denise Johnson’s reckless decision to release this perp without bail almost got people killed — including a cop.”
“She has demonstrated she is unfit to serve on the bench. But the problem doesn’t end there: the state’s dangerous new bail laws paved the way for this travesty of justice,” he added.
“Every lawmaker who voted for those laws must explain what they’re doing to stop this from happening again.”
Lynch’s remarks came after NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea tweeted Friday afternoon that detectives were “AGAIN searching for Takim Newson after he used a car to assault a police officer early this morning.”
A spokesman for the state court system declined to comment beyond referring back to an earlier statement that said Johnson believed “that “the least restrictive form of bail as is required by the law, was supervised release.”
