The Bronx cop arrested last week for slinging heroin and fentanyl on the job should have long been on the NYPD’s radar.
Grace Baez, 37, was sued in 2016 for use of excessive force and false arrest during a Jan. 6, 2014 incident on West 125th Street, according to court papers.
The civil rights case settled in Manhattan federal court for $30,000, according to the court filing.
Baez was accused of excessive force again in 2019 — but the complainant did not follow through, records show.
The NYPD put Baez on modified duty in 2020 after she was accused of misconduct.
The department did not divulge the details of that incident.
Baez — who once boasted about how much she loved her job — quit the NYPD last week after she was busted for allegedly dealing large quantities of top-quality narcotics, federal officials said.
“She was already modified. They should have caught this. It’s not like she was selling popcorn,” a Manhattan cop fumed. “We’re talking about a drug dealer.
“They should have been looking at her more extensively. . . . The dangerous thing is she was out here selling fentanyl, which is killing people. It’s like, who was supervising her?”
In the 2014 incident that launched the lawsuit, a crew of cops, including Baez, allegedly cleared the El Puerto Seafood restaurant shortly before 4:30 a.m. and fractured the foot of 27-year-old Shawn Young while collaring him on the sidewalk outside, the suit claimed.
Prosecutors maintained Young and another man were arguing in the restaurant, Young was escorted outside and arrested when he repeatedly tried to go back inside.
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He also refused to put his hands behind his back and bend over to get into the squad car, prosecutors said.
Cops also claimed Smith spit in Baez’s face and cursed her, which he denied.
“I feel like every single one of them [excessive force/false arrest cases] ought to trigger some type of internal review,” said David Zelman, Young’s attorney, who noted cops did not have body cams back in 2014.
The ex-cop, who is currently under house arrest with an electronic monitoring device, could not be reached for comment.
No one answered the door at her two-story home in the Pelham Gardens neighborhood, where a white Jeep Grand Cherokee was parked in the driveway.
The arrest shocked one of her neighbors, who was unaware Baez had resigned under controversy, “Oh sh-t! That’s garbage — especially what happened to the little kids.”
He was referring to a toddler’s death from exposure to fentanyl at a Bronx daycare center last month.
“It’s a disgrace to the job. That’s the stuff they [the Department] should be working on, not white socks,” a seasoned cop said, explaining that officers get in trouble for wearing the wrong color socks with their uniforms.
Baez was charged along with Cesar Martinez, of Yonkers, her boyfriend, with conspiracy to distribute narcotics and distribution of narcotics, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said.
Baez and Martinez, 42, allegedly tried to sell the drugs to a federal informant between Oct. 9 and Oct. 29, officials said.
Additional reporting by Deirdre Bardolf
