An NYPD cop speeding on his police scooter lost control and ran into an elderly man crossing the street, sending the man flying head over heels and leaving him injured in the street.
New York City police officer Thomas Hopper then cited Jose Flores for jaywalking, accusing him of endangering the life of an officer by stepping in front of him, even though a surveillance video shows Flores looked both ways before crossing.
It also shows that Hopper had lost control and that the scooter was skidding on its side when it slammed into Flores on August 7, 2012.
But Hopper was not going to take the fall for his own fall. Not when he has a badge and can place the blame on a defenseless victim.
Flores was briefly transported to a hospital where he was chained to a bed and released without having x-rays done because the cops wanted to jail him on a ten-year-old warrant for an open container, according to [__Gothamist.__](http://gothamist.com/2016/01/26/scooter_cop_lawsuit.php)
He then spent the next 36 hours in a jail cell complaining of neck pain, which led to other inmates giving him sandwiches that he was able to use as pillows.
A judge released him after dismissing the warrant and he spent the next four months in a hospital being treated for two broken vertebrae in his neck.
Meanwhile, Flores’ wife, who had been diagnosed with dementia a month before the incident, was so distraught that he was going to be jailed for jaywalking and endangering the life of a police officer, that she suffered a heart attack and died three months later.
Flores was eventually acquitted of the jaywalking charge. He then filed a lawsuit against the city.
The civil trial was scheduled for Monday but the city offered to settle for $2.9 million beforehand.
Hopper was the subject of another lawsuit in 2009 when a fellow cop sued him for threatening him with a gun, according to the [__New York Post__](http://nypost.com/2009/11/02/cop-on-cop-gun-suit-blames-city/).
> A Queens cop is suing the city — claiming a hot-headed fellow officer pulled a gun on him.
> When South Task Force Officer Joseph Giordano, a 14-year NYPD vet, returned from patrol to the unit’s Rosedale headquarters last April, Thomas Hopper, assigned to the switchboard, asked if he was his meal-break replacement, sources said.
> When Giordano said no, Hopper allegedly instigated a fight, then pulled his gun. He was suspended.
> Giordano is seeking unspecified damages.
It is not clear how that suit turned out, but Hopper is still on the force.
