An NYPD officer arrested state Assemblymember Eddie Gibbs in East Harlem on Thursday afternoon, police officials said.
Police stopped a driver – reportedly Gibbs’ brother, according to the New York Post – on Lexington Avenue near East 115th Street around 1:30 p.m. for a broken tail light, officials said. Police say Gibbs was nearby, approached the vehicle and “told the driver to get out.”
As the driver exited, officers instructed Gibbs to step away but he refused to comply with multiple requests to move back onto the sidewalk, according to the NYPD.
Gibbs, who was standing between the stopped vehicle and police officers, was arrested and taken to the NYPD’s 25th Precinct, authorities said. The incident was captured on police body-worn cameras, they said, and the driver was released with a warning.
Police issued a summons for disorderly conduct and released Gibbs from the precinct on Thursday afternoon, according to officials. His office did not comment on the incident.
The arrest was first reported by City and State.
Gibbs is the first formerly incarcerated New York state assemblymember. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter charges in the 1987 killing of a friend and spent four years in prison after 17 months in the Rikers Island jails.
He was released in 1991 and elected to the Assembly more than three decades later, in 2022.