NYPD officers under investigation after video shows beating of wrong man

Two plainclothes NYPD narcotics detectives are under investigation after video surfaced showing them repeatedly punching and kicking the wrong man inside a Brooklyn liquor store, a botched encounter that now sits at the center of a full Internal Affairs review.

The nearly eight-minute video was recorded Tuesday afternoon inside BK Wine Depot at Hoyt and Baltic streets in Boerum Hill, just before 4 p.m. Police said the officers had been working an undercover drug-dealing investigation tied to complaints about crack cocaine sales and were looking for a man linked to a prior sale. Instead, police said, they misidentified Timothy L. Brown, who fit a description but was not the intended suspect.

Brown has been identified by CBS News New York as a home health aide and security guard. He said he had just gotten off work and had gone into the store to buy wine when the confrontation began. Brown said bottles were broken during the arrest and that he was dragged across glass.

Police confirmed the authenticity of the footage and said no drugs were found in the search. Brown was initially issued a desk appearance ticket on charges of resisting arrest and obstruction of government administration, but the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office said it planned to dismiss the case. The NYPD placed the two officers on modified duty and removed their guns and shields while the Internal Affairs Bureau investigates.

The video prompted immediate political fallout. Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the footage “extremely disturbing and unacceptable,” and said officers should never treat a person this way. U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman, State Sen. Andrew Gounardes and City Councilmember Shahana Hanif also condemned the officers’ conduct.

Outside the liquor store, Hawk Newsome of Black Lives Matter NY denounced what he saw in the video, saying it looked like people beating a man “like it’s the 1950s and 1960s.” Detectives Endowment Association President Scott Munro urged caution and said people should not rush to judgment, while also emphasizing the risks narcotics detectives face.

For the NYPD, the case has become more than a single mistaken arrest. It raises hard questions about how undercover operations are identified, how quickly a misread suspect can turn into force, and whether internal oversight is catching problems before a viral video does.