Danglewicz leaves the court in Derby (photo: Martin Naylor, Derby Telegraph)
DERBY, UK – A Fallsburg Police officer who was vacationing in Derby, UK was charged with racially abusing a taxi driver, the Derby Telegraph reported.
Lawrence Danglewicz, 35, of Accord, had been out drinking for hours and got into a cab with a friend in Friar Gate, the newspaper reported. He accused the driver of taking a long way to his destination and shouted “a racially abusive name, repeating it four times,” the paper quoted, Lynne Bickley, the prosecutor as saying in court. “At that point the defendant started shouting at him, ‘you don’t know who I am; I’m a police officer’.”
The cabbie returned to Derby where he notified the taxi marshals who
called the police and later arrested him.
The paper reported that Danglewicz admitted he had been drinking for hours, was drunk, felt embarrassed and wanted to apologize to the cabbie.
Bickley was quoted as saying the cabbie was left feeling “disrespected.”
Danglewicz pled guilty to using “racially-aggravated aggressive, insulting or abusive words or behavior” during the incident, which began just before 2 a.m. on Sunday, January 21, the Telegraph reported. He was fined about £2,000, or a little less than US$2,800.
Danglewicz could not be reached for comment Monday evening.
