The title isn’t intended to incite violence against the NYPD; it’s only to get your attention about what the NYPD continues to do to our young people of color.
Ever heard of a Buck 50? It’s when someone goes across a person’s face, inflicting a serious cut or slash that requires 150 stitches.
Let’s not do that to New York’s finest.
I’m not advocating any violence against police, but if the practice of stop-and-frisk continues, young people of color in NYC will get sick and tired of the abusive harassment that they endure on a daily basis and things may turn violent.
There are two schools of thought when it comes to stop-and-frisk, one is the numbers game the police department plays with their officers.
Each officer has to fill their quota of getting 250 filed stop-and-frisk documents under their belt, and if don’t reach that goal they are subjected to disciplinary action.
Two, the impact stop-and-frisk has on the community as a whole only widens the gap between young people of color and the NYPD. The trust is gone, if there ever was any.
Looking suspicious isn’t a crime, isn’t against the law and shouldn’t be the cause of being harassed by the police.
Which brings us to the case of 16-year-old Harlem student Alvin, who was stopped and frisked during the summer by New York’s finest and recorded his encounter with the boys in blue.
Alvin was walking home on a summer night from his girlfriend’s house and he was stopped by the police just because as he walked, he noticed the police creeping and he kept looking at them, most likely fearing that he would be stopped and harassed.
The cops threatened Alvin with violence, asking him, “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.”
There are two types of questioning, one, to entice you to become angry and violent, thus having a reason to arrest you, the other is asking the same question over and over to see if you’re lying so they can catch you and then arrest you. Either way, you’re in a lose-lose situation unless you keep a cool head.
In Alvin’s case, the officers in question were clearly in the wrong. They would ask him a question, then scream at him, telling him to shut up.
How do we win the ongoing battle with 5-0? Simple, make the NYPD accountable for their actions and support landmark legislation like the one currently in New York’s City Council known as the Community Safety Act:
“It would ban profiling by the NYPD. It would prohibit the NYPD from relying, to any degree, on race, ethnicity, religion, or other protected categories when engaging in law enforcement activities, with few exceptions.
The legislation would also, for the first time in New York City law, make the NYPD accountable for practices such as stop and frisk that have a disproportionate impact on communities of color and other New Yorkers.
Finally, it would broaden the communities protected against profiling by including a prohibition on discrimination based on race, religion, age, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, immigration status, housing status, or other characteristics.”
This is the logical first step in ending the racially driven practice, as there are over 1,800 stop-and-frisk on any given day across New York City.
So if you’re unfortunate enough to be one of those 1,800 people, take a page out of Alvin’s book and hold the police accountable.
Shaka Griffith is the News/Politics Editor of GlobalGrind.com Follow him on Twitter and send your thoughts, rants and outburst to @Darealshaka
