A Bronx woman is suing the city over a series of loud and frightening police concussion bombs that knocked her off her feet.
Monet Oliveras, 40, thought it was just another noisy spring night last April outside her apartment on Taylor Avenue in Van Nest. At about 4 a.m., she tried to shut out the noise by closing her window.
Suddenly, “there was a flash and explosion outside,” Oliveras’ lawyer says in a lawsuit in Manhattan federal court.
“The force of the explosion threw Ms. Oliveras backwards, causing her to hit her head and her back against the wall. Another window in the apartment shattered as a result of the explosion,” the suit says.
A second window broke when another explosion went off. Oliveras says the explosions forced her to lie on the floor of her apartment, sobbing and terrified.
Dizzy, her ears ringing and eyes stinging from vapor and fumes, Oliveras opened her door.
There stood two cops “in full tactical gear with their guns drawn” telling her she had to stay inside.
Oliveras wasn’t arrested and didn’t appear to be the target of the NYPD operation. The police were raiding another apartment nearby.
Oliveras was eventually able to get an ambulance to a hospital, where she was treated for chest pains, a migraine and other ailments. She claims she was forced to stay with family for three weeks, and “continues to feel traumatized” by the incident.
Her lawsuit seeks unspecified damages. The NYPD declined to comment