From The Nation:
Exclusive audio obtained by The Nation of a stop-and-frisk
carried out by the New York Police Department freshly reveals the
discriminatory and unprofessional way in which this controversial policy
is being implemented on the city’s streets.
On June 3, 2011, three plainclothes New York City Police officers
stopped a Harlem teenager named Alvin and two of the officers questioned
and frisked him while the third remained in their unmarked car. Alvin
secretly captured the interaction on his cell phone, and the resulting
audio is one of the only known recordings of stop-and-frisk in action.
In the course of the two-minute recording, the officers give no
legally valid reason for the stop, use racially charged language and
threaten Alvin with violence. Early in the stop, one of the officers
asks, “You want me to smack you?” When Alvin asks why he is being
threatened with arrest, the other officer responds, “For being a fucking
mutt.” Later in the stop, while holding Alvin’s arm behind his back,
the first officer says, “Dude, I’m gonna break your fuckin’ arm, then
I’m gonna punch you in the fuckin’ face.”
“He grabbed me by my bookbag and he started pushing me down. So I’m
going backwards like down the hill and he just kept pushing me, pushing
me, it looked like he we was going to hit me,” Alvin recounts. “I felt
like they was trying to make me resist or fight back.”
Alvin’s treatment at the hands of the officers may be disturbing but
it is not uncommon. According to their own stop-and-frisk data, the NYPD
stops more than 1,800 New Yorkers a day. A New York Times
analysis recently determined that more than 20 percent of those stops
involve the use of force. And these are only the numbers that the
Department records. Anecdotal evidence suggests both figures are much
higher.
The audio is at The Nation.
Mike Bloomberg said yesterday that "nobody racially profiles" and the NYPD stop-and-frisk policy isn't racist.
What would he call the stop-and-frisk documented by Alvin?
I think that it's long past time for Black men to stand up and BREAK THE FEAR BARRIER. We must confront the police BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY
ReplyDeleteThey should be stoped and disciplined
ReplyDelete