PROP (Police Reform Organizing Project) recently held a public forum that featured Current and former NYPD officers speaking about and critiquing their experiences working for the NYPD.  They addressed NYPD tactics such as Stop and Frisk as well as the departments use of Compstat.  The event was Moderated by Graham Rayman of the Village Voice, who has done excellent invstigative reporting on the NYPD.  Panelist included: Carlton Berkeley, President of Brothers and Sisters Who Care and former NYPD Detective 2nd Grade; John Eterno, Professor at Molloy College and former NYPD Captain; Jeff Kaufman, high school teacher in Brownsville and former NYPD Officer Counsel; Anthony Miranda, Chair of National Latino Officers Association and former NYPD Sergeant; Colleen Meenan, practicing attorney, former NYPD Sergeant, and former executive director of the Gay Officers Action League (GOAL); Adhyl Polanco, current NYPD Officer; and Graham Weatherspoon, Black Law Enforcement Alliance and former NYPD Detective. 

Students are Organizing against Police in Schools

45th Precinct Residents  File Complaint Against Abusive NYPD Officers
Groups March in Protest of Student Harassment

People Power Movement - Bronx, NY – A group of Bronx residents gathered on Monday, May 7th, at 3:30pm across the street from Lehman High School and marched to the 45th NYPD precinct to file a lawsuit against two police officers accused of harassment against Lehman High School student Malik Ayala.
 
Ayala, 16, became the target of police harassment in the hallway of his school, while waiting to take an exam. Ayala was engaged in conversation with some of his fellow students, and demands were made for his ID, records, and documents, first by Peace Officers, then by his Dean and then by the NYPD. Ayala was told that the literature he planned to hand out to fellow students was illegal because it had the Black Panther logo. He was then issued a summons for disorderly conduct. As a result of the time he spent with officers, Ayala was forced to miss that very important examination.

Less than two weeks later, Ayala noticed a young man being arrested in the subway and began to record the police actions with his cell phone. Officers demanded to see the phone, slammed him against the wall, and searched him despite Ayala’s refusal to agree to let them do so, which was his legal right. Once again, Ayala was served with a summons for disorderly conduct.

This is not a unique case. Local youth, predominantly of color, often go through the same experience daily in their schools and communities. On Monday May 7th we will march with fellow students and residents of the Bronx community to file complaints against officers who are harassing youth of color.

In schools where the majority of the student body is comprised of youth of color from working backgrounds, young people are treated not as students, but as criminals. There are metal detectors, peace officers, and the NYPD is called in routinely. Apparently the aim is to condition the students to be subjects of a police state, to create an atmosphere of intimidation and to establish a pipeline from schools to prisons.

For more information email: peoplepower@live.com or call: 212-537-4439

Harlem CopWatch, Friday April 13th at the Harlem State House between 125th and 126th and 6th Ave at 8pm Members of the Campaign Against the New Jim Crow, OWS, Liberation Summer, and other organizations against racial injustice are planning to flood Harlem streets with Cop Watchers on Friday the 13th. The action will involve activists filming police as they engaging in stop-and-frisk or make arrests. After the police have left the scene, a media van will arrive to project videos about racial injustice and rights violations, hand out flyers on the subject, and generally speak with and reach out to people in the neighborhood. The group is requesting legal observervation to discourage police from arresting filmers, as in the case of Jazz Hayden, who has been arrested for filming police and who will be participating in the event. There will likely be multiple groups of CopWatchers working simultaneously.

Report and Video from a witness who was nearby the incident.

March 27, 2012. Harlem, 135th and 8th ave at approx 3:00pm. The aftermath of cops throwing teen through window because he was standing around near a Trayvon Martin protest group after school I am not sure if the kid was involved with the protest. Let's make sure this cop is accountable for his excessive abuse!!

We are still trying to find out more details about this incident. Anyone with information please email info@allthingsharlem.com

While passing through the train station we stumbled on NYPD rookies training on other human beings without any regards for their feelings or dignity; for some minor offense. The events depicted in this video are routine for Black and Brown men.

The police are looking for a suspect in a car accident. The description of the suspect is that he wore blue jeans and a grey shirt, no weight, height, or other notable features. The gentleman being detained is in a Harlem bar eating a meal. The cops come in and treat him like a suspect because "he fits the description", along with half the people in Harlem. These policemen were obvious rookies.

Photo From: Harlembespoke.com

Video Here

The Shrine, a Harlem bar and restaurant that provides live entertainment for a racially and ethnic diverse group, was "occupied" by NYPD on Saturday night March 10, 2012.  NYPD and others were apparently conducting an inspection. The resources used for this occupation were a dozen officers, commanders, vans, and police vehicles. For what?  Why on Saturday?  Where was the threat to public safety?  There was none.

Yet, another example of the NYPD's stop and frisk policy at work. On February 23, 2012 we passed 2 men being stopped and frisked outside of their car in Harlem. It turned out that the police stopped them because of the vehicles tinted windows. During the stop the driver had trouble finding his drivers license. Both men were told to get out of the car and had their bodies frisked. After their bodies were frisked the NYPD proceeded to search the vehicle.

While the men were standing at the back of the car the driver searched his pockets again and was able to find his license. At this point the NYPD took down all of the drivers information and let both him and the passenger go with no tickets or traffic violations.

Add another worthless stop and frisk to the 700,000 that take place in New York City each year. More people human rights were violated for no reason whatsoever other than driving while black in Harlem.

Full Video

Click on Image to view Allthingsharlem's Video Playlist of police coverage in Harlem and around NYC.

NYPD strikes again, brutally beating a Bronx Teen, Jatiek Reed, 19, last week.  The incident was caught on video and is another example of a Police department that is out of control and brutalizing our communties.  Even Police Commissioner Ray Kelly who almost never admits any wrong doing on behalf of the NYPD stated that, "the video was disturbing."  The officers in the video were also stripped of their guns for the time being and put on desk duty while NYPD investigates the incident internally.  This incident and the filming of it further empasizes the importance of citizens taking out their cameras and monitoring police activity.  If this video had not come out this would just be another everyday case of the police officers word verse the victims word.  All Things Harlem urges our viewers to please film police activity in our communities. 

Watch Full Video

Man who witnessed video from his fire escape also punched and attacked by NYPD in attempts to silence him.

NY1 - Report by Dean Meminger

NY1 - As the New York City Police Department has placed police officers involved with a violent arrest in the Bronx last week on modified duty, an eyewitness to the incident claims those same officers immediately went after him. NY1's Criminal Justice reporter Dean Meminger filed the following report.

Family Members of Jatiek Reed want the officers in the video charge with a crime.

NY1 - Report by Dean Meminger

NY1 - The Bronx man who says a video posted to YouTube proves that he was brutalized by several police officers appeared in court Wednesday, and his family is calling for charges to be brought against the officers involved in the incident. NY1’s Dean Meminger filed the following report.

If you are a young black man in NYC this data proves that chances are you will to be stopped.  In many cases more than once. In a letter to the editor of the NY Times. Lazar Treschan, Director of Youth Policy Community Service Society of New York points out...

"Our analysis of 2009 stop-and-frisk data for the New York police shows that 94 percent of stops in 2009 did not lead to an arrest. The analysis also showed that there were 132,000 stops of black men 16 to 24. This is particularly striking since according to Census Bureau data that we examined, only 120,000 black men of that age lived in New York City in 2009. So on average, every young black man can be expected to be stopped and frisked by the police each year."

"We cannot accept that so many young people experience their lives this way, particularly at such a formative stage. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s recent Young Men’s Initiative made little attempt to address stop-and-frisk policy. We must stop treating young black men like criminals and start thinking of them as potential assets to our recovering and growing economy and society. Until we do, our efforts to improve their education and employment prospects will be hollow." - Lazar Treschan

What do you think about this data?  Is every young black man in New York City a potential criminal? 

 The People who've been bringing us the great live-stream coverage from the start of Occupy Wall Street on Global Revolution have been raided yet another time by the NYPD.

RT.Com - The New York City headquarters of a group cooperating with the Occupy Wall Street movement was swarmed by the NYPD on Tuesday in a raid that left half a dozen people involved with the Globalrevolution.tv website in police custody.

Cops entered the Bushwick studio used by Global Revolution on Tuesday after posting a notice on the door of the space occupied by the group the night before. According to authorities, the space at 13 Thames St in the Brooklyn, NY neighborhood hosted conditions “imminently perilous to life” and had to be vacated by all occupants, although failed to provide any details on what factors had led to such a case. When cops returned the next day and found a handful of people on the premises, they were arrested.

The space used by Global Revolution was the only one that was targeted by the police.

Global Revolution, a website that aggregates live, streaming content pertaining to the ongoing Occupy Wall Street movement, was using the space as a production studio to manage the video output fed to the website.

Nigel Parry, an organizer with Global Revolution, tells The Atlantic Wire that the group had only recently moved into the space for production purposes. While details are scarce regarding the actual inhabitants of the space, Vlad Teichberg, one of the key figures involved with Global Revolution, was living at the site when he was arrested Tuesday. According to Parry, Teichberg had been a resident of the space on Thames St. for at least a year.

On Wednesday afternoon, Teichberg and five others were still in police custody for charges of trespassing, obstructing governmental administration and resisting arrest.

The Bushwick, Brooklyn location raided by the police has been the site of the Global Revolution production studios since as recently as December. Previously the organization operated out of Zuccotti Park, the Lower Manhattan hub of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Full Story From RT NEWS

Ashley Gilbertson/VII, for The New York TimesThis young 23-year-old man gives us detailed accounts of the many stop and frisks that the NYPD has conducted on him during his short life.  He helps shed light and give us a personal account of the damage this racist practice of Stop and Frisk causes on individuals and the community as a whole.

Why Is The NYPD After Me? 

By: Nicholas K. Peart

NY Times - WHEN I was 14, my mother told me not to panic if a police officer stopped me. And she cautioned me to carry ID and never run away from the police or I could be shot. In the nine years since my mother gave me this advice, I have had numerous occasions to consider her wisdom.

One evening in August of 2006, I was celebrating my 18th birthday with my cousin and a friend. We were staying at my sister’s house on 96th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan and decided to walk to a nearby place and get some burgers. It was closed so we sat on benches in the median strip that runs down the middle of Broadway. We were talking, watching the night go by, enjoying the evening when suddenly, and out of nowhere, squad cars surrounded us. A policeman yelled from the window, “Get on the ground!”

I was stunned. And I was scared. Then I was on the ground — with a gun pointed at me. I couldn’t see what was happening but I could feel a policeman’s hand reach into my pocket and remove my wallet. Apparently he looked through and found the ID I kept there. “Happy Birthday,” he said sarcastically. The officers questioned my cousin and friend, asked what they were doing in town, and then said goodnight and left us on the sidewalk.

Read Full story at the NY TIMES

A member of OWS's Stop Stop and Frisk Campaign follows Police Commisioner Ray Kelly in attempts to hand him an honarary, Bull Conor award, for excellence in cracking down on people of color.

Another example of the disgusting practices of the NYPD that occur everyday in communities of color. This time a light gets shined on the situation because it happened to this young college student.  No one should be subject to this type of treatment. - ATH

NY Times - Early in the morning on Oct. 22, a Saturday, Ms. Zucker, 21, and her friend Alex Fischer, also 21, were stopped by the police in Riverside Park and given tickets for trespassing. Mr. Fischer was permitted to leave after he produced his driver’s license. But Ms. Zucker, on a visit to New York City with a group of Carnegie Mellon University seniors looking for jobs in design industries, had left her wallet in a hotel two blocks away.

Read Full Story at NY Times

NYPD doing what they do best. Harassing and arresting protesters for in attempts to scare and deter at Day 4 of Occupy Wall Street.

Spread and share info using #occupywallstreet

Have an opinion about the NYPD’s practices in your neighborhood or an experience you would like to share? Take the survey and contribute to our campaign research.

Hiding behind a badge and a flashlight, two officers stop and search vehicle in Harlem. 

Watch full video below

- Hear from the officers as well as the men who were searched.

July 30, 2011 - NYPD officers stop and search the car of 2 men in Harlem.

Joseph "Jazz" Hayden, Founder of allthingsharlem.com films the incident and questions the officers as to why they are searching the man's vehicle. The officers point their flashlights at the camera the majority of the video to hide their faces.

After the stop, the two men who were stopped and searched gave an interview to allthingsharlem.com about how they felt racially profiled and would be filing a complaint with the Civilian Complaint Review Board against the officers.

NY1 - Concerns of police misconduct and excessive ticketing may become an election day issue as members of the Urban Justice Center begin a new campaign aimed at reforming the way officers interact with the public. NY1's Dean Meminger filed the following report.