Above: A member of the audience speaks before at what was to be a lecture by New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly at Brown’s Taubman Center for Public Policy Tuesday. Kelly spoke for only a minute or so, before being interrupted by protesters inside the lecture hall. He left 20 minutes later without speaking. THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL / STEVE SZYDLOWSKI
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — New York’s police commissioner Raymond Kelly was booed off the stage at Brown University and did not get to speak Tuesday afternoon.
Public Safety Steven M. Paré Tuesday at Brown’s Taubman Center for Public Policy. Kelly was able to speak for only a minute or so, before being interrupted by protesters inside the lecture hall. He left 20 minutes later without speaking. THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL / STEVE SZYDLOWSKI
Kelly was to deliver a lecture Tuesday at Brown on “proactive policing.”
Kelly was to discuss his time as head of the New York Police Department and his efforts to drive down crime in a lecture called “Proactive Policing in America’s Biggest City” on Tuesday afternoon.
Before the lecture, some students and social justice activists marched, carrying signs that stated “Stop & frisk doesn’t stop crime” and “Stop police brutality,” to protest the Kelly’s police department’s stop-and-frisk policy and its surveillance of Muslims.
The department is fighting lawsuits alleging it has engaged in racial profiling while fighting crime. Kelly and Mayor Mike Bloomberg have denied the accusations.
The lecture is sponsored by the Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions. The students planning the protest had called for Brown to cancel it.
— with reports from Steve Szydlowski, Journal photographer, and the Associated Press