Brooklyn woman defends right to go topless
A Brooklyn burlesque dancer has filed suit against the New York City Police Department after she was issued a summons for sunbathing topless in a Gravesend park.
Jessica Krigsman said in her suit, filed Monday in Brooklyn Supreme Court, that she was lying topless on a bench in Calvert Vaux Park in Gravesend in July 2012. Two NYPD officers soon approached Krigsman, asking her to put her shirt back on. Krigsman contends that she informed the officers that it is legal for women to go topless in New York. One police officer, Colleen Canavan, allegedly told Krigsman to stop “mouthing off” after Krigsman pointed out a bare-chested man sitting on an adjacent bench.
Krigsman was issued a summons for “obstruction of a sitting area,” a New York Parks Department rule that prohibits individuals from using a bench or other seating area in a NYC park in any way that interferes with another’s use of the bench or seating area.