On Tue, 23 Oct 2001, ravi wrote:
>
>
> seems like giuliani's exhortations to visit NYC and go to a broadway
> show were not intended for everyone! report below (i am trying to
> find the original source) on harassment of an indian couple by nyc
> police (i wonder if this couple is like the various indian yuppies i
> meet who adopt conservative positions regarding crime, police
> harassment, etc, but anyway, thats probably an unfair thought at
> this point),
>
> --ravi
>
>
> ps: found the source: http://www.rediff.com/us/2001/oct/22ny14.htm
>
>
> NY police manhandle Indian on Broadway
> Aseem Chhabrain New York
>
> For his second wedding anniversary Uday Menon wanted to take
> his wife out for dinner and a Broadway show on October 10.
>
> He wanted to see The Producers, the hit Broadway musical based
> on Mel Brooks' classic film and winner of 12 Tony awards. But the
> show was sold out until April 2002, and so Menon settled for a Cole
> Porter musical, Kiss Me Kate, winner of five Tony awards.
>
> The plan was that Menon, a 46 year-old consultant with J P Morgan,
> and his wife Surekha Collur, a physician at a Brooklyn hospital, would
> go out to eat at Mirchi, a new Indian restaurant in Greenwich Village,
> and then make it in time to catch the show at the Martin Beck Theatre,
> at 45th Street between Broadway and Eighth Avenue.
>
> What Menon did not know was that, based on the suspicion of the
> Telecharge operator, the telephone service that sold him the tickets,
> there were four New York City police officers waiting at the theatre to
> nab him. When the couple arrived on the scene, the officers, fearing
> that Menon was a terrorist who was about to blow up the theatre,
> pounced on him, handcuffed him and dragged him into the street
> outside the theatre, while his seven-months pregnant wife watched
> in horror.
>
> "The woman (the Telecharge operator) was very friendly," Menon said,
> recalling his October 9 call to the agency. "I can't remember anything
> strange or out of the ordinary in the conversation. She seemed to have
> all the time in the world."
>
> As Menon remembers, when he learnt that The Producers was sold
> out for the next several months, the Telecharge operator herself
> volunteered
> to read through a list of Broadway shows along with brief synopses for
> each event. When they settled on Kiss Me Kate, the operator first offered
> him $90 orchestra seats. Eventually Menon bought two $65 tickets in the
> mezzanine, which partially hangs over the orchestra.
>
> The rest of the conversation between Menon and the operator would
> seem insignificant to anyone who has ever bought tickets on the phone.
> Menon inquired about the number of rows between his seats and the
> stage. He then gave his credit card number and the operator asked him
> for the expiry date as well as his mailing address.
>
> "I never asked whether the theatre was going to be full, because I didn't
> care about it," Menon said. "All I wanted to know was whether the show
> was popular and whether the tickets were available. She finally said
> 'Enjoy the show' and told me that the tickets would be waiting for me the
> next day at the box office."
>
> On October 10, Menon and Collur reached the Martin Beck Theatre at
> 7.55pm. The lobby was empty as most people were already inside the
> auditorium for the 8pm show. While Collur got busy looking at the show
> posters and reading newspaper reviews, Menon walked up to the
> box-office window. When Menon gave his last name, the woman behind
> the window asked him to step aside. And within seconds the four officers,
> three of them in plain clothes, were all over Menon.
>
> "Suddenly I felt my hands being grabbed from behind, my legs being
> grabbed and I think I was carried off the floor," he said. He was then
> dragged about half a block away from the theatre towards Eighth Avenue.
>
> "You feel really impotent," Menon said about being handcuffed.
> "It didn't hurt, but you can't move your arms at all. You can't do
> anything.
> It happened so fast. I kept asking them what the hell was going on? There
> were people gathered and they were watching."
>
> "My first thought when they grabbed me was this was some mistaken
> identity problem. I thought maybe I fit some terrorist's profile. But at no
> point did I think that it had anything to do with my conversation on the
> previous day."
>
> To establish credibility with the officers, Menon mentioned that his
> wife was with him.
>
> "So one of them mocked me and said: 'Oh ya? And where is your wife'?"
>
> Just then the visibly pregnant Collur came out of the theatre looking
> for her husband. And as the men frisked Menon and began to look
> through his wallet, Collur offered them her identity cards as well.
>
> "By then they had realised that this was a big mistake, since I had
> nothing on me. But even at that point one of them threatened me in
> his Brooklyn accent and said: 'Don't get uppity with me now. I can
> put you away'."
>
> "The guy at the receiving end has to have some anger. I couldn't be
> a saint. And they threatened to put me away."
>
> It was then that the officers told Menon that the Telecharge operator
> had reported him to the police. The operator's report to the police
> said she believed that Menon did not care which play he saw, as
> long as it was a crowded theatre and he sat in the middle of the hall.
> Her interpretation: Menon, with his foreign name and accent, was
> going to blow up the theatre.
>
> "And I said 'What? What the **** was she talking about'?"
>
> The officers, all from the Midtown Precinct South, asked Menon what
> he remembered from the prior day's conversation and then called
> the Telecharge operator to check her story.
>
> Eventually, they removed Menon's handcuffs and let him go. They
> did not apologise, but the one dressed in uniform told him that he
> had been nervous reporting to work that day.
>
> "He was on a theatre beat and said: 'You are afraid? Well, I was also
> afraid. I was afraid that my five-month-old daughter would not see her
> father tonight. I was supposed to grab you from behind and if you had
> an explosive, I may have blown up with you. These were the thoughts
> going through my mind'," said Menon.
>
> The police officer then escorted the couple to the theatre to pick up
> their tickets. The man behind the window was much more apologetic
> and informed Menon that their tickets were on the house. The couple
> was ushered in and seated in the orchestra section.
>
> During the intermission, the house manager Carmel Gunther walked
> up to them and again offered her apologies.
>
> "She said, 'I believe it is your wedding anniversary and that you
> actually wanted to see The Producers. We can certainly arrange
> for you to see The Producers. Would you like to see it tomorrow?'
> And I said no, not tomorrow."
>
> But Menon did accept Gunther's offer. On November 6, he and Collur
> will see Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick in The Producers,
> courtesy the Martin Beck Theatre.
>
>
>