“I thought I was going away for a very long time for such a serious charge. It’s a scary thought,” said the plaintiff, whose suit was filed in Manhattan federal court last week.
Prosecutors dropped the terrorism charge against her hours later and instead left only minor infractions against Bernard, a full-time mom. The entire case was dropped a month later.
Bernard, here on the roof of her lawyer’s office in DUMBO in Brooklyn on Monday, is suing the NYPD after it temporarily branded her a terrorist.James Messerschmidt
Despite the dropping of the charges, Bernard’s anxiety, depression and fear following having her name associated as a terrorism suspect remain, she says.
“While you’re sitting there in your cell, you don’t know if you’re going to be going to prison for a very long time,” she said. “And with the understanding that you have not done anything wrong — that makes it even more frustrating.”
Bernard was arrested on the evening of May 8 as she waited near a downtown police precinct to provide “jail support” for demonstrators who had been arrested — some who are also suing the city — earlier that evening at a protest held for Neely near the Broadway-Lafayette subway station where he was killed.
As she stood on the sidewalk, an assistant NYPD chief grabbed her arms and shoved her into a brick building, her suit states. Bernard said she obeyed all orders and did not resist arrest. She spent the next nearly 23 hours in police custody.
The mom protests Jordan Neely’s death during a demonstration near the Broadway-Lafayette subway station in downtown Manhattan in 2023.Daniel William McKnight
Cops initially slapped her with a terrorism charge, but prosecutors declined to take the arresting officer’s suggestion, instead filing minor misdemeanors against her. The charges were dismissed against her that June.
One of Bernard’s lawyers, Masoud Mortazavi, said he and his client have no idea where the initial terrorism rap came from.
“That’s part of what we want to get to the bottom of,” the lawyer said.
Top police officials and Mayor Adams held a press conference and displayed “fabricated” evidence of a Molotov cocktail, the suit says, suggesting that she and other protesters “intended to engage in violent or terroristic conduct.”
These images from Bernard’s arrest are included in her new lawsuit.Obtained by the NY Post
While the suit states damages of $2.5 million, that number can grow as the legal process proceeds, her camp said.
Her suit notes that the NYPD’s public-information office sent out her name and address, stating that she had been arrested on terrorism — even after the district attorney’s office declined to pursue the terror charges.
“I felt unsafe in my own home with my own children,” she told The Post. “I was feeling very paranoid every time the doorbell rang. It was a very scary time.”
Her suit adds, “NYPD members repeatedly, publicly, and intentionally accused Ms. Bernard of terrorism-related conduct, despite full knowledge that this allegation was false, and even after this arrest charge was rejected by the reviewing prosecuting agency, the New York County District Attorney’s Office.”
Bernard says she’ll “never forget how scared” she was when her name and address were released in connection with a terrorism charge.James Messerschmidt
Confusingly, the original NYPD press release appears to associate her arrest with a separate protest on the Upper East Side.
Bernard contrasts that with the information police shared about Penny. Just his name and a single charge was included, not his address, according to the suit, and he was allowed to walk away from the scene and turn himself in weeks after Neely’s death. He was eventually charged in the case.
“It’s clear that the Department’s priority was not transparency or public safety, but rather retaliation against community organizers like Ms. Bernard for the content of their speech,” said her other lawyer, MK Kaishian.