Woman on Upper West Side calls 911 - and gets arrested

Suzanne LaFont got a result she never expected when she called 911 in April 2013 because her husband was suffering chest pains.

When officers from the 20th Precinct arrived, suddenly they put Karl Peltomaa, who had just undergone open heart surgery, in handcuffs to restrain him.

When LaFont tried to intercede by tapping on an officer's shoulder to explain her husband's heart condition, she said officers arrested her.

"I said, 'you can't do this,'" she said.

Her husband was rushed to the emergency room without his wife, who spent the night in police custody.

After eight court appearances, a judge dismissed charges against LaFont, ruling that police mishandled the 911 call.

"If this happened to us, it could happen to anybody," LaFont said.

The couple is suing the city, claiming Peltomaa was treated like an emotionally disturbed person, rather than a person in need of urgent medical care for a heart problem.

"My clients were absolutely traumatized," said attorney Amy Marion, of the Garden City law firm of Barket Marion. "You call for help for a medical emergency and you end up in a prison cell? The officer could have said, 'Ma'am, please don't touch me, do not interfere with what I'm doing.' There are protocols in place for these situations."

Neither the New York City Police Department nor the city's legal department had any comment.