Chaumtoli Huq was standing alone outside a Ruby Tuesday's in Times Square in July when New York City police officers told her to move. She says she wasn't in anyone's way, she wasn't blocking the sidewalk -- she was just waiting for her husband and two young children, 6 and 10, to come outside after using the restroom. 

That's when the cops arrested her.

DNAinfo, which first reported on the arrest, says Huq "said the officers pinned her against the wall, prompting her to say, 'I can’t move, I can’t move.'"

Huq told The New Civil Rights Movement in an email conversation that police pushed her "against the wall of Ruby Tuesday, and I screamed 'Help,'" as this image, taken by a bystander, shows.

She says when the police arrested her they pulled her arm up, causing pain and scars. Another officer, Huq says, was squeezing her arm "so I had to walk bent over," as this photo, taken by the same bystander, shows.

"My shoe was gone. All in public as folks watched." It was "humiliating," Huq adds.

As it turns out, Chaumtoli Huq is a human rights attorney. She says she is on leave from her position as general counsel for NYC Public Advocate Letitia James. And she says she's suing.

"When I was arrested," Huq tells The New Civil Rights Movement, "I was with my family, and we had left a rally for children in Palestine who were being injured, killed because of the conflict, and [were]heading to a picnic in Brooklyn."

"At that moment, I was a mom, a loving partner to my husband of 12 years, but I became in a second the arresting officer's 'prisoner.' He said to me when he was searching my purse and took my identification and when I objected, that I was his prisoner and he could do whatever he wanted."

The New York Daily News reports that when Huq "said she was in pain, one of the officers, Ryan Lathrop, allegedly told her, 'Shut your mouth.' When he found out she had a different last name than her hubby, he told her 'In America, wives take the names of their husbands.'"

She was held for nine hours after the officers falsely claimed she had refused instructions to move and had “flailed her arms and twisted her body” to make it hard for them to handcuff her, the suit says.

Huq, who is 42, says she is currently "on a fellowship to investigate labor conditions in Bangladesh after the collapse of Rana Plaza." She says, "I think that as a mom [that]I can be reduced and humiliated and separated from my family is what impacts me most to this day. My son asked me: 'Why did the officer arrest you?'"

Raising a boy of color, and knowing how youth of color are vulnerable to over-policing, made me think, this is not about me but about my life's work of protecting New Yorkers.

If at this moment, I didn't step up and advocate for their rights, then, how can I authentically call myself an advocate for New Yorker.

As for the lawsuit, Huq says, "I am demanding in my suit and through community groups: (1) the officer to be removed; (2) training for NYPD on Muslim and South Asia community as well as gender: (3) change in city policy on over-policing in communities of color; (4) resources for youth of color who are most vulnerable to over-policing and whose life chances are most impacted by a criminal record."

NYPD badge via Wikimedia.

Arrest photos by Charles Meachum. Portrait by DNAinfo/Ben Fractenberg. All used by permission.