UFT Sends Out Deceptive Bill Thompson Mailer

Daily Politics reports that the UFT has sent out a Bill Thompson mailer using the tragic deaths of Trayvon Martin, Amadou Diallo, Ramarley Graham and Patrick Dorismond to sell voters on Thompson's candidacy:

“We know the Trayvon tragedy here in New York. We’ve lived it, over and over again, from Amadou Diallo to Patrick Dorismond to Ramarley Graham,” reads the piece from United for the Future, a political spending arm of the United Federation of Teachers, which backs Thompson.

"Each time we hear of another innocent young black man killed, with our hearts torn open we hand our heads and pray, "Please Lord, not again, not again," says the reverse of the lit.

"Bill Thompson knows that keeping communities safe from crime doesn't have to come at the expense of feeling unsafe around the police," the mailer continues, in text set next to an image of a black child sitting on a soccer ball and staring down at the pavement.

The flier, a copy of which was obtained by the Daily News, appears to reflect a doubling down on Thompson’s new hard-line stance against stop and frisk, which he has explicitly connected to Martin's shooting in the past.

After the acquittal of Martin's shooter, George Zimmerman, Thompson had said, “Here in New York, we have institutionalized Mr. Zimmerman's suspicion with a policy that all but requires our police officers to treat young black and Latino men with suspicion.”

An excerpt of that quote, part of a talk Thompson -- the only African-American candidate in the Democratic mayoral primary -- gave at Abundant Life Church in Brooklyn, appears on the front of the mailer.

Gee, that mailer makes Bill Thompson seem like a real staunch defender of people of color, especially against stop-and-frisk.

Ah, but Bill Thompson used to be for Bloomberg's stop-and-frisk policy before he was against it.

But Thompson's words on the subject were not always so harsh, with his moderate stance on the tactic garnering him criticism from some black officials. As recently as late July, Thompson was still defending stop and frisk as a misused but potentially “useful police tool."

In one of his most passionate moments of the earlier part of the race, Thompson flared up at Democratic primary rival John Liu during a discussion of the tactic at a March candidate forum in Queens.

The ex-controller sharply chastised his successor after Liu urged Thompson to join him in calling for an outright ban on stop and frisk, with Thompson saying he was the one who had to worry about the cops targeting his child based on the color of his skin.

When asked why the UFT was sending out a deceptive mailer making Thompson sound like a staunch long-time opponent to stop-and-frisk, the UFT issued a no comment:

A UFT representative responded to questions about the mailer with an email saying "we have taken a decision not to comment on our IE activities during this election cycle."

Does it bother me that the UFT leadership has decided to use my union dues to send out deceptive mailers making Bill Thompson sound like somebody he isn't?

You bet.

Thompson was a supporter of stop-and-frisk up until the Thompson campaign realized they were losing black voters over the issue.

That's when they made a political calculation to have Thompson go to a black congregation and speak out against stop-and-frisk.

The reality is, had Thompson's support in the black community not been lagging, he'd STILL be supporting the policy and calling it a “useful police tool."

Just another example of how Bill Thompson has no core political beliefs and ideals other than political expediency and his own career advancement.

Kinda like the UFT leadership.

Bill Thompson Gives Speech Comparing Trayvon Martin Killing To Stop And Frisk, Fails To Mention NYPD Shootings

From Daily Politics:

The only black candidate for mayor said Sunday Trayvon Martin was killed because he was black - and the NYPD’s stop and frisk policy is driven by the same kind of bias. 

“Trayvon Martin did die because he was black. Of that there is no doubt,” ex-City Controller Bill Thompson told the congregation at Abundant Life Church in Brooklyn, saying that regardless of legal merits of George Zimmerman’s acquittal, “George Zimmerman was suspicious of Trayvon because he was young and because he was black.” 

 

He turned the issue into his most forceful attack to date on the NYPD’s stop and frisk policy.
 

“Here in New York City, we've institutionalized Mr. Zimmerman’s suspicion with a policy that all but requires our police officers to treat young black and Latino men with suspicion, to stop them and frisk them because of the color of their skin,” he said, charging young men of color “are profiled, as Trayvon was profiled. If our government profiles people because of skin plot and treats them as potential criminals, how can we expect citizens to do any less?"
 

Thompson said his natural instinct is to steer clear of the topic of race.
 

He has taken a moderate stand on stop and frisk compared to some of his Democratic rivals, criticizing it as abusive and calling for an overhaul but opposing its abolition as well as bills to create an NYPD inspector general and allow people to sue over racial profiling.
 

But in an unusually passionate speech for the typically subdued candidate, he said he felt compelled to speak out after the not guilty verdict in Martin’s killing, “after a jury of our peers declared the killing of an innocent black youth to not be a crime."
 

He said the verdict prompted tough conversations between children and parents, “especially those of us like me with young black sons.”
 

“I do not believe our government can fully stop racism, but I do believe we must constantly look to see how it may enable it, even unintentionally,” he said. “So we must ask ourselves, when fear of young black men ends in deadly violence against the innocent, has our government perpetuated that fear by targeting people of color with suspicion?”

 

Let me know when Thompson feels "passionate" enough to connect Trayvon Martin's tragic death to the tragic deaths of young black men shot and killed by the NYPD here in NYC and call for the NYPD to stop killing black men for crimes like having a hand in a waistband or trying to flush dope down the toilet.

 

Somebody said in a comment on another post here at Perdido Street School that they could never vote for Bill Thompson because he is the ultimate hack.

 

I think there is something to that.

 

Even in this supposed "passionate" speech which Thompson gives about an issue he says he cares a lot about, he takes the hack route and softballs his criticism against the NYPD.

 

Here's a part of the speech Thompson conveniently left out:

 

Trayvon Martin was killed by George Zimmerman because Martin was black, there is no doubt about that.

 

Kimani Gray was killed by the NYPD because he was black, there is no doubt about that.

Ramarley Graham was killed by the NYPD because he was black, there is no doubt about that.

Just as George Zimmerman targeted Trayvon Martin because of his race, ultimately killing him with impunity and walking away a free man from the crime, the NYPD targets black men in this city every day and every so often, they too ultimately kill one with impunity, as has happened in both the Graham and Gray cases.

See - you can connect the Trayvon tragedy to the NYPD's killing of black men in this city.

 

Thompson should be taking a stand on these NYPD tragedies instead of giving a speech on stop and frisk that he's had poll tested to death for a couple of weeks before he had the guts to go public with it. 

 

He has been trying to thread the needle on stop and frisk and NYPD police brutality for the entire campaign.

 

But you can't thread the needle on this issue.

 

You just can't.

 

Trayvon's killing was a tragedy and an outrage.

 

But so were the murders of Ramarley Graham and Kimani Gray.

 

POSTSCRIPT: And don't get me started on Thompson's aggrandizing Obama's Trayvon speech.  

 

I'm sure it hasn't occurred to a hack like Thompson, but given Obama's drone bomb killing track record killing men of color, Obama is, in the words of Cornell West, "a global George Zimmerman."

Where's The Daily News Cover For Ramarley Graham?

Back on February 2, 2012, Ramarley Graham was followed home by NYPD detectives and shot and killed in his family's apartment.

According to the NY Times, members of the NYPD's Street Narcotics Enforcement Unit pursued Graham after they allegedly received a report that Graham was armed with a gun.

No gun was found on the scene or on Graham's body, though police did find a bag of marijuana in the bathroom where Graham was shot.

Graham was apparently trying to flush the bag of dope when police broke into the apartment and shot him.

The Times describes what happened at the scene this way:

The impression that Mr. Graham had a gun was reinforced as officers tracked the three men. The group next went to a home at 728 East 229th Street, where Mr. Graham was spotted leaving with what appeared to be the butt of a gun in his waistband, according to another set of radio transmissions among the narcotics team members.

Two officers wearing raid jackets and bullet-resistant vests emerged from a van and yelled, “Police! Stop! Don’t move!” said Mr. Kelly, citing the account of a civilian witness. 

But Mr. Graham made it to his home at 749 East 229th Street, and the front door locked, stymieing officers who were pursuing him with their guns drawn. Another tenant, Gene Davis, 60, said he saw the officers rushing through the outside gate before they reached the door. They yelled at him: “Don’t move! Get back!”

Eventually, a man alerted by the commotion let the sergeant in a back door and told him that Mr. Graham lived on the second floor. The officers then spread out: One stayed on the ground floor; the sergeant stayed on the stairs; and two lead officers went to the apartment and knocked. When no one answered, they “broke open” the door, Mr. Kelly said. 

Precisely what happened in the bathroom seconds later is not clear. On Thursday night, the police said Mr. Graham had tussled with an officer, but on Friday, Mr. Kelly said there did not appear to be any evidence of a struggle. 

“We don’t believe there was contact,” he said. 

The officer yelled, “Gun! Gun!” and then fired, Mr. Kelly said. 

The teenager’s grandmother Patricia Hartley was in the hallway. Paulet Minzie, the landlady, who lives on the third floor, said she heard the grandmother shouting at the police: “Why you hitting me? Why you hitting me?” 

Mr. Graham’s 6-year-old brother was also screaming, Ms. Minzie said. “He said, ‘They killed my brother!’ ” she related. 

The two officers involved in the shooting were stripped of their guns while an investigation was pursued.  

At the time, Bloomberg and Kelly said some publicly soothing words about the shooting.  

But later on we learned that the NYPD officers had threatened to shoot the grandmother on the scene, then taken her to the 47th precinct where she was held for hours while the cops worked her over, trying to get her to change her story:

EDENWALD — The NYPD cop accused of gunning down Ramarley Graham also threatened to shoot the slain teen's sobbing grandmother in the chaotic moments after cops burst into their Bronx apartment, a new lawsuit charges.

The blistering 108-page lawsuit filed by Graham's family details how plainclothes officers in street narcotics unit barged into their apartment, fired at the teen and hauled his grandmother away for hours of grueling questioning and intimidation.

Graham's family filed the lawsuit in Bronx Supreme Court on Friday, on the eve of the anniversary of his death. They accused the NYPD of improperly training officers, unfairly targeting minorities in stop-and-frisks and trying to cover up the shooting of the 18-year-old.

Officer Richard Haste shot Graham in the chest on Feb. 2, 2012, after following the teen into his apartment bathroom. Graham's grandmother, Patricia Hartley, who was several feet away from Graham at the time, immediately cried out, "Why did you shoot him, why you killed him?" the lawsuit says.

Haste then pushed Hartley into a vase and said, "Get the f--- away before I have to shoot you, too," according to the lawsuit.

Hartley, who was 58 and weighed 85 pounds at the time, was then allegedly forced into a seat and had her arm twisted behind her back after she tried to make a phone call.

Cops eventually took Hartley to the 47th Precinct station house, where investigators called her a "f---ing liar" and claimed she was covering for the dead teen, whom cops believed had thrown a gun out a window, the lawsuit says. No gun was ever recovered, and a small bag of marijuana was found in the toilet.

Officers also allegedly dipped their hands into her coffee, then flicked their fingers against a wall to show how blood splatters. They also showed her a picture of a shot man they claimed was Graham, according to the lawsuit.

Hartley was allegedly locked in a station house room for nearly seven hours, and cops ignored her and her daughter's request to leave, the suit says. Hartley's lawyer says he was also denied access to her for more than 90 minutes. When Hartley was eventually released, she was treated at a hospital for trauma.

Officer Richard Haste was indicted on manslaughter charges in June 2012, but no charges for the alleged NYPD cover-up of the Graham shooting that took place at the 47th precinct were filed, nor did the mayor or the commissioner offer any soothing words to the family about how awful it is for an 85 pound grandmother to be worked over by the NYPD after they had threatened to shoot when she got upset over their shooting of her grandson.

What's worse, the indictment of Officer Haste has since been thrown out of court because the DA's office screwed up:

NEW YORK (WABC) -- A Bronx judge threw out the indictment against an NYPD officer in the fatal shooting of a Bronx teenager. 

The judge said the assistant district attorney made an accidental mistake to grand jury, which voted to indict Officer Richard Haste on manslaughter charges in the death of Ramarley Graham.

Graham's mother was in the courtroom at the time, reacted very emotionally and had to be removed from court.

"I am angry and cannot express my feelings alone," Constance Malcolm said. "I am ready to take it to the streets and the highest of the highest. Please be prepared for a major protest."

The family quickly condemned the decision.

"If it means going back to the grand jury or if we have to ask the federal court to deal with this case, we are going to keep fighting, no matter what," dad Frank Graham said. "Whereever it leads us, we will go there. We will never stop until justice is served in this case, until Richard Haste goes to prison for murdering our son. If we start over, we will start stronger."

"Murdering cops must be held accountable," said Frank Graham, Ramarley's father, "Tell Richard Haste we are not going to rest until he goes to prison."

The Daily News ran a extraordinary cover this morning lamenting the shooting of Trayvon Martin and the not guilty verdict of the man who admitted to shooting Martin, George Zimmerman, connecting this travesty of justice to others like the murder of Emmet Till.

But somehow the Daily News editors who are so broken up by the Martin murder and the Zimmerman verdict can't bring themselves to get all broken up about the murder of Ramarley Graham or the treatment his grandmother received at the hands of the NYPD officers in the 47th precinct.

Let's revisit this case once more:

Police broke into Graham's family's apartment and shot him right in front of his grandmother and little brother while he tried to flush a small bag of marijuana down the toilet, then threatened to shoot the grandmother if she didn't go passive at the scene.  They then took her down to the 47th precinct where they worked her over for seven hours, trying to get her to change her story about what she had witnessed at the scene of the shooting, calling her a "fucking liar" and other indelicate things while they put the pressure on her.

What happened to Trayvon Martin is a travesty and should not and cannot be forgotten.

Make no mistake about that.

But we have our own Trayvon Martins right here in New York City and we have our own George Zimmermans too - though here they sometimes wear blue shirts and shiny badges and get away with executing teenagers in their home for the crime of trying to flush some dope down the toilet.

I look forward to the Daily News expanding upon their extraordinary cover from this morning by putting Ramarely Graham on the cover and connecting his murder at the hands of the NYPD with all the other black men murdered by the cops in this city over the years  - from Amadou Diallo to Sean Bell to Patrick Dorismond.

But as usual with this sort of thing, I won't be holding my breath because, as I noted this morning 

the Daily News wants you to believe they're on the Justice For Trayvon Martin bandwagon while they conveniently ignore all the Trayvon Martins murdered here in New York City by the NYPD because linking those murders with Trayvon's doesn't fit into their ideological worldview.