New York cops held Kamilah Brock in a psych ward because they didn't believe she owned her BMW
New York City police allegedly sent a black woman to a mental hospital for eight days, where she was forcefully injected with powerful drugs, because they refused to believe she owned a BMW. Kamilah Brock, 32, says she was waiting at a red light in Harlem, New York when police approached her car and quizzed her on why she did not have her hands on the steering wheel.
The African-American banker responded that she was dancing to music, and the police took her into custody on September 12 last year. They released Brock after a few hours and told Brock to come back the next day to collect her car.
But when she returned to pick up her car – a 2003 BMW 325CI – police did not believe that she was the rightful owner of the luxury vehicle. She was detained and later sent to a mental institute.
Speaking to local news channel PIX11, Brock said it was all a "nightmare" that never would have happened if she weren't African-American. She said: "I just felt like from the moment I said I owned a BMW, I was looked at as a liar. They put me in handcuffs and said they just need to put me in handcuffs to take me to my car.
"And I said OK, whatever it's going to take to get to my car. Then emergency medical services approached me. And they said we're going to take you to your car. And I'm like, in an ambulance? I'm going to my car in an ambulance? I'm going to my car in an ambulance? I was just so confused," she added.
$13,000 bill for detention
Brock was taken to Harlem Hospital and was injected with sedatives and forced to take medication. She was stripped naked, forcibly restrained by medical personal and given lithium and other powerful sedatives.
"He held onto me and then the doctor stuck me in the arm and I was on a stretcher and I woke up to them taking my clothes off, specifically my underwear," Brock tearfully recalled for PIX11's Nicole Johnson. "Then I went back out again. When I woke up the next day, I felt like I was in a nightmare. I didn't understand why that was happening to me."
During her stay at the hospital, Brock was told she was delusional because of her claims that she owned a BMW, worked at a bank and was followed on Twitter by Barack Obama. The only problem? All three of those things were true.
To make matters worse, Brock was sent a $13,000 medical bill after she was released. She has filed a lawsuit against the city, the police and the hospital and is seeking unspecified damages.
The police claimed earlier this summer that Brock had been "acting irrational, she spoke incoherently and inconsistently, and she ran into the middle of traffic on Eighth Ave" during the traffic stop with police. Previously, the NYPD previously only confirmed that Brock was taken into their custody.
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