The incident, which occurred Sept. 17, 2022, is the subject of a civil rights suit filed last week in Kings County, NY, against the neighbor, Marcus Rosebrock, and an unnamed White woman accused of forcibly entering the doctor’s home with a “large, menacing German Shepherd in an effort to silence plaintiffs and end their celebration.”
The scene is reminiscent of when White police officers used fire hoses and dogs to attack, intimidate and silence African Americans participating in civil rights demonstrations in the 1960s, the lawsuit notes. Only this time, the scene was a beautifully decorated garden party in the wealthy neighborhood of Forest Hills, featuring a nine-course, catered dinner and attended by business, music and government affairs luminaries, and other prominent members of the legal community, including Rigo “Riggs” Morales, senior vice president of A&R and artist development at Atlantic Records; David Morgan, co-founder of the BIPOCXChange and CEO of the Washington D.C. nonprofit Multicultural Media & Correspondents Association and his wife Kevonne Small.
The surprise party was hosted by Dr. Yves Duroseau, who made headlines for becoming the first U.S. doctor to receive the coronavirus vaccine, and his wife, Claude Duroseau, for Yves’ younger sister, Rosevony Duroseau. Rosevony, an asylum officer with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and graduate of Fordham Law School, was celebrating her 47th birthday and her recent engagement to William McBorrough, a cyber security, expert, entrepreneur and associate professor.
Around 9:50 p.m., as the party was winding down, an unnamed White woman entered the Duroseau home, uninvited, with a large German Shepherd and demanded that the music playing in the backyard be turned down, according to the suit. The hosts, fearful that the dog would attack and seriously injure them, told the woman that the party was winding down, asked her to leave, and returned to the garden to join their guests.
It was then that Rosebrock, whose backyard abuts the Duroseau property, began water hosing Plaintiffs and the other guests to get them to disperse. The pressure from the hose was “extremely powerful and stinging in nature,” according to the lawsuit. At one point Dr. Duroseau, Morales and another guest climbed Duroseau’s son’s treehouse to look over the fence separating the Duroseau and Rosebrock properties and ask that Rosebrock stop.
Rosebrock “turned his water hose on them with increased water pressure, and violently water sprayed them in the face and body, drenching them, and putting them in fear of serious bodily harm as they were afraid that they would be knocked to the ground from out of the tree house,” the lawsuit claims, noting the water hosing continued even as the caterers were clearing the tables of plates.
“Our clients are deeply scarred from being attacked with a water hose and intimidated with a German Shepherd. They feel degraded and humiliated, and they were made to feel less than human. The Duroseaus haven’t been able to enjoy their home fully since this assault, and they haven’t dared to hold a backyard event for fear of being assaulted again. In essence, they are prisoners in their own home,” said plaintiffs’ attorney Mina Malik.
The suit seeks unspecified damages for violating their civil rights, assault, battery, trespassing and intentional affliction of mental anguish and emotional distress.
“Unable to use their property for a peaceful gathering, and humiliated, put into fear, embarrassed and degraded, plaintiffs seek justice for the assaultive conduct, battery and civil rights violations,” the lawsuit says.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs have scheduled a press conference at their Manhattan Office for Thursday, Sept 28, at 11:00 AM.
