10:50am May 17, 2013

➸ Stories differ in case of arrest of Rochester man in wheelchair | Democrat and Chronicle | democratandchronicle.com

The disabled man who said police assaulted him while he was waiting for a bus in his wheelchair May 1, on Tuesday denied police allegations that he swore at officers and swung his arms in an attempt to strike them.

Benny Warr, 52, pleaded not guilty to disorderly conduct, a violation, and resisting arrest, a misdemeanor, in City Court Tuesday morning. He is scheduled to return to court at 9:30 a.m. May 30 for a pretrial conference.

Warr, of Bartlett Street, was arrested about 7:20 p.m. May 1 as officers were attempting to clear Jefferson Avenue and Bartlett Street, where Warr said he was waiting in his motorized wheelchair for a bus to go see some friends.

In court papers, officers said they told Warr that they were clearing the street in front of businesses on Jefferson Avenue due to recent drug and violent activity in the area. They asked him to move and he refused and used profane language, according to the papers.

“The defendant refused to put his hands behind his back as ordered to be handcuffed by tucking them under his body at first,” the report reads. “The defendant then swung his arms wildly in an attempt to strike officers trying to place him into custody.”

Warr, who has a prosthetic from the knee down on his left leg due to a birth defect, alleges he was then sprayed in the face with a chemical substance and his wheelchair was turned onto its side causing injuries to his body including, he said, three fractured ribs.

I don’t even know where to start, re: the QUESTION, the actual question, of whether a Black male wheelchair user deserved to have three ribs broken because he might have possibly told cops to fuck off when they tried to deny his right to exist in public and arrest him for exercising it.

I don’t even fucking know where to start.