MYFOXNY.COM - A Fox 5 investigation has caused such a stir that a new state law might be passed. Lawmakers gathered outside NYPD headquarters promising to change police procedures. It all started when a newlywed husband vanished, and a family feared the worst.
Watch John Deutzman's update and then read and comment on his blog.
Rebecca Padro, a newlywed, was panicked and alone. She had recently moved here from Pennsylvania. Her husband of six months -- Miguel -- was missing. By all accounts he was a soft-spoken, great guy.
"I was already freaking out I already knew that something was wrong because there's no way he wouldn't have gotten in touch with me," she says.
Turns out, there was a reason Miguel couldn't get in touch with his wife. He was trapped in bureaucratic hell.
"She thinks I'm dead and she's not getting any help from anybody," Miguel says.
Miguel, a grad student, had just left his Flatbush apartment riding his bike to his part-time job as a clerk at a nearby tennis center in Brooklyn's Prospect Park when he was nabbed by police from the 71st Precinct for riding his bike on the sidewalk. And because he left his wallet at home and didn't have ID, he was arrested.
At the 71st Precinct things got kind of crazy. Despite what you see on TV or in the movies, there's no law that gives you the right to make a phone call after you've been arrested, but here in New York and other cities it's usually police procedure or a courtesy to allow you to make a phone call.
Miguel says the cops agreed to let him make a call, but when he gave them the number, which has a Pennsylvania area code, they said they couldn't make long-distance calls from the precinct.
"I told them I didn't know any local numbers off the top of my head," Miguel says. He asked them to get his cell phone and scroll through the contacts to find a number to call.
"They said 'We don't do that.'"
He says he even suggest they call his work -- the tennis center -- but he says the cops told him they don't do that.
Miguel says he spent about 9 hours at the 71st Precinct and was told he could make a long distance call when he got to central booking downtown.
"The guy at central booking said: 'We don't make calls here, we do that at the precinct.'"
So Miguel was behind bars and unable to contact anyone. Meanwhile back at the apartment, Rebecca was freaking out her husband had vanished, and she didn't know what happened.
Miguel's brother Juan rushed down from Massachusetts, and Miguel's parents were notified. Cops from the 71st Precinct -- the very same precinct that arrested Miguel -- responded to Rebecca's 911 call for help.
"I was like crying and shaking and telling them what happened and that he definitely was missing," Rebecca says. "And I didn't know where he possibly could be, they weren't writing anything down and basically they told me you cannot report an adult missing in New York, period."
Family and friends searched Prospect Park, fearing they might find a body. It wasn't until 16 hours into the ordeal that police at another station near the park made a call and found out that Miguel was arrested.
"I've never been so relieved to hear that someone was arrested in my life," Rebecca says.
Being from Pennsylvania, Rebecca never heard about those so-called quality of life crimes here in New York that can send you to the slammer.
"I don't know they arrest people for riding on their sidewalk around here," she says.
Police tell Fox 5 that proper procedure was followed, that since Miguel didn't have ID they were obligated to try to identify him. The department also says that cops who responded to Rebecca's call for help might not have had the information that he was arrested.
And the NYPD claims that they gave Miguel every opportunity to contact someone and that his cell phone was dead. But Miguel says it wasn't.
"In fact, on the way to the station it was ringing in my pocket, but I was handcuffed in the car and couldn't answer it.
State Assemblyman Mike DenDekker from Jackson Heights watched the original story on Fox 5.
"When I first watched the story on television I was amazed that this could have possible have happened," he says. "What can we do from a legislative point of view to prevent this from happening again."
He wants to pass a law that would require giving arrested people the ability to contact someone even if it's a long-distance call.
"Because of your investigative story you brought something in light to us state legislators that we know will face the basic rights of our judicial system," he tells Fox 5. "It's an important issue and we need to change it."
Miguel spent a total of 36 hours behind bars before a judge released him on time served.
"So hopefully this changes and it will feel good if something really does happen I think it will impact people in a positive way," Miguel says.
DenDekker says if Fox 5 hadn't aired the story, he and other lawmakers wouldn't have known to take
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