The city added a thousand-dollar insult to an already painful injury when it demanded that a Brooklyn cyclist pay for damage to the police car that struck and sent him flying.
“I think it’s preposterous,” said Justin Johnsen, 31, who received the $1,263.01 bill from the city last month for the Nov. 5 accident on Flushing Avenue that left him with deep cuts that required stitches.
“I was upset. I was in kind of disbelief that they were going to send this letter after four months or so and ask me to pay damages for their vehicle, when they hit me when I was on a bicycle,” added Johnsen, who was not ticketed for the crash.
The case is at least the third in recent months in which the city has billed people for damages to police cars that hit people.
And after The Post made inquiries about Johnsen’s case, it became at least the third time the city abruptly dropped such a stunning demand for money.
“They should be sending an apology letter instead of a bill,” fumed lawyer Daniel Flanzig, who took the case pro bono after learning that the city was threatening to sue Johnsen if he didn’t cough up the cash.
A former Lake County police officer was arrested on charges of threatening to kill a group of bicyclists, WFTV learned.
Former Mascotte police officer, Richard Dillon, and a friend were driving in Howey-in-the-Hills last month, when they approached a trio of bicyclists along East Dewey Road.
An arrest report said Dillon threw something out of the window and then yelled at the cyclists to get out of the road.
The report said that one of the cyclists gave the men the middle finger. That’s when Dillon’s friend, Steven Nuzzo, slammed on the brakes, and the pair jumped out of the car, the arrest report stated.
“Mr. Dillon was accused of pulling a knife and threatening to cut them,” said Sgt. Jim Vachon, of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
The report said Dillon made a harsher threat: that he’d kill them. Nuzzo allegedly told them that he’d shoot them.
