Assembly Member Eddie Gibbs arrested for disorderly conduct

Assembly Member Eddie Gibbs was arrested and taken into custody shortly after 1 p.m. in Harlem, the New York City Police Department confirmed. 

Two sources close to Gibbs told City & State that the state legislator was arrested near his district office following some kind of altercation that occurred during a traffic stop, though they did not provide further details.

The NYPD press office said on Thursday afternoon that a disorderly conduct summons was issued to an individual who was present for a car stop on Lexington Avenue around 1:30 p.m. The individual who was issued the summons was not the driver of the car, but was with the driver, whom the New York Post reported was Gibbs’ brother. The NYPD press office did not provide information about the behavior that prompted the disorderly conduct summons, or what the police response was, but it confirmed that the individual taken into custody has since been released.

When asked whether it could provide body camera footage from the arrest, DCPI wrote simply, “no.”

Authorities told Gothamist that after police officers stopped the vehicle for a broken tail light, Gibbs approached the vehicle and told the driver to get out of the vehicle. Police officers reportedly told Gibbs multiple times to step back onto the sidewalk, which he refused to do.

Speaking to the Daily News outside of the local police precinct, Gibbs took full responsibility for what happened and apologized for interfering with the traffic stop. “The officers did nothing wrong. It was all on my part. … I wasn’t wrongfully arrested, I wasn’t profiled. What I did was, I interfered with an NYPD stop,” he said. 

A staffer for Gibbs who answered the phone at his district office at about 1:40 p.m., around the same time as the arrest, told City & State that they could not confirm that an arrest had taken place, but suggested that something had happened that caused other staffers in the district office to go outside and check it out. “We can’t comment, and we don’t have any information, actually. Our staff just went out to see what’s happening,” the staffer said. “There was something wrong, so we’re just finding out ourselves, so we don’t know what’s happening.” Subsequent calls to Gibbs’ district office were not answered.

By 2:30 p.m., the district office on East 115th St. was closed. A neighbor told City & State that this was unusual and the office was usually open at that time. A group of staffers returning to the office said that they could not comment on what had happened. Although they entered the office, they did not immediately reopen it to the public.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office did not immediately respond to City & State’s inquiries. The New York Post later reported that Gibbs had been taken into custody after his car was stopped by the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group.

Gibbs represents Assembly District 68, which covers parts of Harlem and the Upper East Side. The first formerly incarcerated person to serve in the state Legislature, Gibbs is a close ally of Manhattan Democratic Party chair Keith Wright and New York City Mayor Eric Adams.