US cops charge mom of dead son for dent in police car

The NYPD has slapped a grieving mother with a $710 bill to repair the police car that was dented when it fatally struck her son, the Daily News reports.

Police say a cop car chased down 27-year-old Tamon Robinson for stealing decorative stones from the grounds of the housing project where he lived. The car hit Robinson and he fell into a coma, dying 6 days later. His mom, Laverne Dobbinson, says the NYPD only allowed her to stay by her son’s bedside for 20 minutes before he died.

Cops also broke into the family’s apartment on the day of Robinson’s funeral, repairing the door that day and later admitting they had the wrong address. Now her lawyer plans to sue the city over the $710 bill, which he calls a “disgrace. … In my 40 years of practicing law in this city I have never seen anything as heartless as this.” Newser

HIGHLIGHTS

Tamon Robinson was killed in the early morning hours of April 12 when he tried to flee police officers. NY Times

An autopsy report released in June by the city medical examiner’s office found that Robinson had sustained “blunt-impact injuries of the head, torso and extremities,” including “traumatic brain injury” and several hemorrhages. It described the manner of death as an “accident (struck by police vehicle during pursuit).” NY Times

“We’re still grieving, and this is like a slap in the face,” Robinson’s mom, Laverne, 45, said. NY Daily News

“They want my son to pay for damage to the vehicle that killed him. It’s crazy.” NY Daily News

According to police, the car was stopped when Robinson ran into it. Witnesses, however, maintain the car hit Robinson directly. Huffington Post

A witness described the incident, claiming, “They hit him. He flew up and he came down. They backed the car up, and they told him to get up. People were yelling out their windows screaming at the cops, ‘We saw what you did.’ ” Huffington Post

Rev. Al Sharpton held a rally in honor of Robinson and demanded an investigation, which is still in process, to look into any criminal wrongdoing in the young man’s death. Huffington Post

An NYPD spokesman declined to comment on the $710 bill.Huffington Post