This morning, a single mother of two children living in Justice Sotomayor Houses in the Bronx, along with her brother and nine-year-old daughter, filed a civil rights lawsuit in Manhattan federal court against the United States and sixteen United States Marshals. Without any basis, the Complaint alleges, the marshals punched, kicked, and beat her brother, forced him to sit on a hot radiator, threatened to kill him, terrorized her 4- and 9-year old children, invaded her apartment without a warrant, and threatened to take away her benefits, her apartment, her children, and her freedom.

As alleged in the Complaint, the marshals said: “We can do whatever we want, we’re the feds,” “We don’t need a warrant,” “I should kill you right now,” “You’re lucky I don’t pull out my gun and shoot you,” “There are 7 of us, 1 of you. Who’s the judge going to believe?” and “We’re the federal government – we can do whatever the fuck we want.”

After this terror, the marshals never arrested anyone in the family and never apologized. Elva Rosa, the lead plaintiff, is an active member of her school’s PTA, and a supermarket cashier.

“These marshals acted like some sort of lawless gang. It’s appalling,” said Ilann M. Maazel, lead counsel, and a lawyer at Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP. “Would this happen on Park Avenue? Never. But in the Bronx, there is no justice even in the former residence of a Supreme Court Justice. This should never happen in America, anywhere.”

The marshals left the family fearful and traumatized. Even now, Ms. Rosa’s daughter prays the marshals won’t take her mom away, and her four-year-old son pretends to hold a gun and says: “Marshal, put your fucking hands up!”

Ilann M. Maazel and David Lebowitz represent the family.

“`We can do whatever we want. We’re the feds’ — U.S. Marshals terrorize Bronx family in search for man with a gun: lawsuit,” New York Daily News
“‘We’re the Federal Government’: US Marshals Sued Over Warrantless Raids,” New York Law Journal