New York:
A 43-year-old man in the US is suing the New York Police Department (NYPD) for one million dollars after cops arrested him in front of his kids for stealing his own car, a media report said.
"I just want my daughters to know their father did not break the law. This turned my world upside down," Jamieson Prince, a resident of Bronx, was quoted by the 'New York Daily News' as saying.
In fact, according to Prince, NYPD officers swarmed his SUV and handcuffed him as he prepared to drive his daughters to school on November 11 - even though he had papers proving ownership.
"I told them it was a mix-up and proved to them I owned the car, but they wouldn't listen. My little girls saw me arrested over nothing. It was so painful and humiliating," Prince was quoted as saying.
Prince claimed that he explained to the officers that his 23-year-old son had borrowed the SUV in July and fled from a crash in Harlem - leading to the son's arrest.
He said that cops told him that they're seizing the vehicle as part of a probe after his son hit a pedestrian, but when he went to the Precinct stationhouse to retrieve his SUV, police couldn't find it.
"They had absolutely no idea what happened to it. It had disappeared," said Prince, a track worker.
He said that four months later, he found the SUV, parked three blocks from the stationhouse. As he drove off, cops rolled up to his home and arrested him a week later - accusing him of removing police property without permission.
"How can the NYPD just confiscate property, lose it, then arrest you for possessing it? It's totally wrong. I want an apology," Prince said.
Prince's lawyer Neil Wollerstein said a rogue police employee may have improperly used the SUV, leading to its disappearance. "You can't lose a 5-ton truck. Either they're completely incompetent or someone was up to no good," he said.
The charges against Prince were dropped January 12, the report said.