Former Philadelphia deputy Lyric Dunbar did just that after she attacked Melanie Greenstein, for unexplained reasons, during a supervised custody-exchange inside the family court building after Dunbar had already cleared the metal detectors.
The attack, which Greenstein never saw coming, left her with a traumatic brain injury and brain damage.
Dunbar’s punishment: six months of non-supervised probation, and an anger management class.
Greenstein, who was seated in the back of the courtroom Tuesday as Dunbar was being sentenced, said she considered the sentence a slap on the wrist for a crime that should have landed Dunbar in jail.
Especially because she was a cop.
And especially because she suffered traumatic brain injury and brain damage from the assault.
“I have brain damage. I had a traumatic brain injury, a severe concussion, vision loss. I’m still suffering from the injuries. She beat me up,” Greenstein told The Inquirer Daily News after hearing that Dunbar was only charged with simple assault and as punishment will only have to attend anger management class.
It happened after Greenstein waked through the metal detectors at the Family Court building on July 30, Dunbar followed then attacked her for reasons not known.
Greenstein said no words were exchanged with Dunbar before the attack.
“She punched me in my face twice and knocked my glasses off. My glasses stabbed me in my eye,” Greenstein recalled.
On July 30, 2017, Greenstein arrived at the Family Court building to pick up her daughter from the child’s father since Greenstein has a court-supervised weekly custody exchange.
“She started spitting her potato chips on me. Then the next thing I knew, she sucker-punched me in the back of the head.”
Footage of the attack shows that Dunbar, who was assigned to the nursery, followed Greenstein down the hallway and smacked Greenstein in the back of the head knocking her off her feet. After regaining her footing, Greenstein walked down the hallway with Dunbar following her. Dunbar attacked Greenstein again, but this time, she punched Greenstein in the right side of her face.
According to the police report, there were words exchanged. Ben Waxman, district attorney Larry Krasner’s spokesman, stated police report revealed Greenstein, who is white, said Dunbar, who is black, was acting like a monkey and that Greenstein called her the N-word.
Dunbar was fired five months after the incident and originally charged with simple assault and harassment, according to District Attorneys Kelley Hodge’s WordPress site, PhillyDA.
Hodge writes:
“PHILADELPHIA SHERIFF’S DEPUTY LYRIC DUNBAR WILL BE PROSECUTED TO THE FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW, WHICH IS APPROPRIATE AND NECESSARY, CONSIDERING THE CLEAR VIDEO EVIDENCE THAT WE HAVE RETAINED AND REVIEWED DURING THIS INVESTIGATION.”
Though the offer Dunbar took from the DA office was anything but the fullest penalty allowed by law, she pleaded guilty to the simple assault but her harassment charge was dropped as part of the offer.
A look at Dunbar’s history shows this is not the first time she has abused her power and been arrested for it.
In September of 2016, Dunbar shot her department-issued weapon at her ex-boyfriend outside her home.
She was charge with aggravated and simple assault after the dispute.
But the charges were dropped after her ex-boyfriend, the target, failed to show up to court three times.
According to OpenGovUs, Dunbars salary last year was $53,489.00.
