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Veteran NYPD Sergeant Pleads Guilty For Punching Two Homeless Men In Police Custody

A vet­er­an New York Police Department (NYPD) sergeant has plead­ed guilty for punch­ing two home­less men on two sep­a­rate occa­sions in 2019 and 2020.

Sgt. Phillip Wong plead­ed guilty at the Manhattan Supreme Court on Wednesday. He admit­ted to assault­ing the first man, who was in police cus­tody, and the sec­ond man, who was at the plat­form of West 96th Street and Broadway sub­way station.

“Law enforce­ment offi­cials are sworn to serve and pro­tect their com­mu­ni­ties, includ­ing New Yorkers in their cus­tody,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said dur­ing Wong’s hear­ing. “In this case, Sgt. Wong vio­lat­ed not only his oath – but the law – dur­ing the vio­lent arrests of two New Yorkers, on two sep­a­rate occasions.”

Wong alleged­ly assault­ed a 48-year-old man being escort­ed by oth­er police offi­cers into a hold­ing cell inside NYPD Transit District 3 in Hamilton Heights on Oct. 4, 2019. The man alleged­ly kicked the cell’s door and spat at the offi­cers, which angered Wong. The NYPD sergeant report­ed­ly charged at the man and punched him in the face, as NextShark pre­vi­ous­ly reported.

Wong was still under inves­ti­ga­tion for the first assault when he got involved in the sec­ond one. 

A 35-year-old man was report­ed­ly arrest­ed at the West 96th Street and Broadway sub­way sta­tion on April 29, 2020, for punch­ing anoth­er pas­sen­ger. Wong was super­vis­ing the offi­cers at the scene of the incident.

The man report­ed­ly hurled anti-Asian slurs at Wong and kicked him in the leg after his arrest. In response, Wong and anoth­er offi­cer brought the man to the ground, and Wong knelt on his back.

At one point, the appre­hend­ed sus­pect alleged­ly told Wong, “I can’t breathe,” but the offi­cer con­tin­ued with his assault and replied, “I don’t give a f*ck if you can breathe or not.”

Wong even­tu­al­ly sur­ren­dered to author­i­ties fol­low­ing the inci­dent. However, he ini­tial­ly plead­ed not guilty to third-degree assault and third-degree attempt­ed assault charges. It is unclear what made him even­tu­al­ly change his mind.

The vet­er­an NYPD sergeant, who joined the force in 2006, was slapped with a two-year pro­ba­tion. He was also ordered to com­plete 70 hours of com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice and under­take anger man­age­ment or oth­er counseling.

The dis­trict attorney’s office has request­ed for Wong to be giv­en a 60-day prison sen­tence. Wong, who has been on mod­i­fied duty, is expect­ed to face a depart­ment tri­al on March 22.