The New York City Police Department arrested state Assemblyman Eddie Gibbs on Thursday and took him into custody.

Gibbs allegedly interfered with police as they pulled over his brother’s vehicle in Manhattan.

“The NYPD’s Strategic Response Group stopped the Harlem Democrat’s sibling as he drove in East Harlem around 1:30 p.m.,” the New York Post reports.

Gibbs, a legislative ally of New York City Mayor Eric Adams, is the first formerly incarcerated New York Assembly member.

From the New York Post:

It’s not the first time Gibbs was caught in legal trouble.

He dealt crack cocaine in the late 80s before he was locked up on murder charges.

Gibbs spent a year in Rikers before working out a plea deal to reduce his charges to manslaughter for a shooting he claimed was in self-defense while his home was getting robbed.

In 2022, he became the first person elected to the state legislature who had served time in prison.

Gibbs was recently accused of illegally firing a former employee as he battled a health crisis that resulted in him losing his leg.

Ex-staffer Keith Lily alleged in a June lawsuit that Gibbs axed him while he was in a hospital for several weeks.

The East Harlem pol is closely allied with embattled Mayor Eric Adams and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie.

POLITICO reports:

Two people who spoke with sources inside the NYPD said Gibbs’ brother was pulled over for having an unregistered vehicle. The Assemblymember was in the car at the time and got into a heated conversation with the cops, who arrested him and gave him a summons.

Nearly a dozen police cars responded to the incident on Lexington Avenue, just outside the James Weldon Johnson Community Center, according to Frederick Thomas, a security guard with the New York City Housing Authority. Cops from the Strategic Response Group patted down Gibbs, put him in handcuffs and drove him away from the scene.

Three other eyewitnesses confirmed Gibbs’ arrest to POLITICO. It was first reported by the New York Post.

It was not immediately clear if Gibbs was charged with a crime.

Calls to his phone and his office were not returned, and an NYPD spokesperson said they did not have any information on the incident. Gibbs’ district office was closed Thursday. The Manhattan District Attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

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