Brooklyn woman finds soggy rugs on a Bushwick sidewalk and takes them home. A week later, she was in jail, ‘sobbing’ as the police handcuffed her

A Brooklyn woman says she was handcuffed, fingerprinted, and held for about seven hours at a Bushwick police precinct after officers accused her of stealing rugs she believed had been thrown away. Jocelyn Ullman, an interior decorator, told Gothamist she picked up the rugs while “stooping,” a common New York City practice of collecting items left out on sidewalks or stoops.

An NYPD spokesperson told the outlet that they received a complaint about a grand larceny involving $4,300 worth of rugs taken from outside Chyelle, a vintage store and cafe in Bushwick. Chyelle Milgrom, the store’s owner, told Gothamist that she had placed the rugs outside after her shop flooded, and that she later regretted contacting police at all.