Carrying your #marijuana stash where the sun don't shine won't keep Officer Febres from finding it. That's dedication. #itswhatwedo. pic.twitter.com/tepm8ZWhl4
— NYPD 23rd Precinct (@NYPD23Pct) October 7, 2016
A Harlem man claims an NYPD officer has a “fetish” for violating New Yorkers’ body cavities during random searches — and he is using a departmental tweet that boasted about the probing officer to help prove his case.
John Hidalgo, 48, says in a new Manhattan federal court suit that he was at his local bodega buying candy for his daughter when an “Officer Febres” from the 23rd Precinct approached him about a “bulge” under his shirt.
Hidalgo tried to show the officer that it was his phone, but he was shoved into the bodega shelves and inappropriately touched by the cop, he claims, including his penis.
The officer also put his finger up his rectum, he claims in the lawsuit.
“I felt anger and rage because I couldn’t do nothing,” Hidalgo told The Post. “I feel like less of a man. I feel like I was raped or something.”
What’s more, Hidalgo claims the officer who did this was the same officer who caused a Twitter storm in October over a tweet suggesting he was willing to go “where the sun don’t shine” to do his job.
“Carrying your #marijuana stash where the sun don’t shine won’t keep Officer Febres from finding it. That’s dedication. #itswhatwedo,” the NYPD’s 23rd precinct tweeted last year, showing an officer identified as Febres at a desk with two bags of weed.
The tweet prompted jokes and outrage, although the NYPD has denied they did a rectal exam.
“What probable cause did you have to perform a body cavity search for weed which is decriminalized in NYC @NYPD23Pct?” Keegan Stephan tweeted at the time.
“thank you for your selfless dedication to sticking your hands up people’s butts,” @lowtax responded.
Hidalgo now claims it was that same Officer Febres who anally violated him.
His summons, which has since been dismissed, was issued by an Officer Febres last September, according to a copy of the summons obtained by The Post.
The summons accused Hidalgo of calling the officer a “f—-t” and telling him he would shoot him.
Hidalgo’s lawyer said his client admits to shouting at the cop and using the epithet for homosexuals. But the comments, while offensive, were provoked by the cop putting his finger up Hidalgo’s butt without probable cause — and then coming up empty, lawyer Gregory Antollino told The Post.
“The pretext for the search was this nonsense about a bulge, but people can walk around without a bulge,” Antollino said. “There’s all sorts of sexual jokes I can make about a bulge, but a bulge is not probable cause of an arrest.”
“It’s not like he had a gun or anything, they did a full search,” Antollino added.
The NYPD did not immediately return a request for comment.
“The complaint will be reviewed by the Law Department,” a spokesman said.
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