New York City (NYC)

NYPD’s Long History Of Killing Unarmed Black Men

December 4, 2014 Christopher Mathias and Carly Schwartz, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! Eric Garner, Ferguson, New York City (NYC), police brutality

Eric Garner was a 43-year-old father of six and grandfather of two. The tall, 400-pound man, who was known around his Staten Island neighborhood as a "gentle giant" nicknamed "Big E," was approached Thursday outside a New York City store by a group of NYPD officers who accused him of selling contraband cigarettes. “I didn’t do shit!” Garner can be seen telling cops in a video of the incident. “I was just minding my own business." It’s a familiar course of events. NYPD officers have a long history of killing unarmed individuals. They’re rarely punished for their actions. And the majority of their victims, like Garner, are black men. Earlier this week marked the 50th anniversary of the death of James Powell, a 15-year-old black student who was shot and killed by a white police officer outside a Harlem apartment building. Powell’s death sparked a series of riots across the country in what came to be known as the “long, hot summer.”

New York City Protests Eric Garner Decision

December 4, 2014 Hunter Stuart, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Civil Disobedience, Eric Garner, Ferguson, New York City (NYC), NYPD, police brutality

New York City residents took to the streets on Wednesday after a grand jury said it would not bring charges in the death of Eric Garner, a Staten Island man who died in July after a police officer placed him in a chokehold. Garner, 43, was being arrested for selling loose, untaxed cigarettes on July 17 when New York City Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo placed him in an illegal chokehold. The medical examiner ruled Garner's death a homicide, but the grand jury said Wednesday it would not indict Pantaleo. Demonstrators gathered across the city, from the Staten Island neighborhood where Garner died to high-traffic areas in midtown Manhattan. They assembled in Times Square, Union Square and Lincoln Center. They marched down Broadway and blocked traffic on the West Side Highway. Police scrambled to keep the crowd from disrupting the Christmas tree lighting ceremony at Rockefeller Center. Nearly three dozen demonstrators were reportedly arrested, though the protests remained largely non-violent.

NYPD Cracks Down On Ferguson Thanksgiving Day Parade Protest

November 28, 2014 Dell Cameron, www.dailydot.com Resist! Ferguson, New York City (NYC), NYPD, police brutality

Multiple arrests were made by the New York Police Department (NYPD) on Thursday morning as protesters incensed by the lack of criminal charges brought againstFerguson, Mo., Police Officer Darren Wilson engaged incivil disobedience at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. NYPD confronted around 100 demonstrators who attempted to enter the Manhattan parade while carrying protest signs. One such sign read: “From the first Thanksgiving to this one, fuck ur [sic] celebration of genocide.” As many as seven of the protesters were arrested by officers, who, according to eyewitnesses, violently pushed, pulled, and shoved the demonstrators to the ground after kettling them with metal barriers.

NYPD Commissioner Bratton Splattered With Fake Blood At Protest

November 26, 2014 Alyssa Figueroa, www.alternet.org Resist! Ferguson, New York City (NYC), NYPD, police brutality

Protests took place across the country last night after the grand jury in Ferguson failed to indict officer Darren Wilson for the shooting death of Michael Brown. In NYC, thousands of protesters swarmed Times Square and eventually shut down the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Triborough bridges. In the midst of the Times Square protest, one activist threw fake blood on NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton. Bratton has been fiercely criticized for the NYPD's broken-windows policy of policing that focuses on patrolling communities of color and cracking down on low-level crimes. His theory is replicated in police departments nationwide. In Ferguson, Officer Darren Wilson approached Michael Brown for not walking on the sidewalk.

Art Broadens Conversation About Police Brutality

November 1, 2014 Geoff Gilbert, www.indypendent.org Resist! Art, Ferguson, New York City (NYC)

Millennial Activists United and Lost Voices, two youth activist groups operating on the ground in Ferguson. Through poetry, graphic art, film screenings and music, the participants explored connections between recurrent police brutality and larger problems of systemic racial inequality and state and economic violence that, in today’s supposedly ‘post-racial’ America, affect communities of color. The #NYCStandsWithFerguson showcase is part of a growing movement of black youth organizing according to a common experience, a process that has begun in the aftermath of the high-profile killings of unarmed black youth like Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Renisha McBride. For the artists, some of whom traveled from Philadelphia and New Hampshire, and their audience of close to 70 people, art functioned as the means to articulate and engage with an experience of systematic racial profiling, mass incarceration, educational deprivation and chronic economic underinvestment.

Underground Rally Defends Subway Performers From Abuse

October 23, 2014 Yari Osorio, www.liberationnews.com Resist! Art, Human Rights, New York City (NYC), police brutality

Over 50 people gathered on a busy NYC subway passageway connecting the G and L Lines the afternoon of Oct. 21 to show support to the men and women who perform on NYC subway trains and platforms. The rally was called in response to the rapid increase in NYPD false arrests and tickets of subway performers. BuskNY, a subway performer advocacy group and New Yorkers Against Bratton held a rally to protest the recent arrest of Andrew Kalleen. Andrew is a 30-year-old guitarist whose arrest was caught on camera and subsequently went viral. In the video, the NYPD officer can be clearly heard reading out loud the specific statue allowing Andrew to perform before forcefully arresting the young guitarist anyway. At today’s protest Liberation News interviewed Andrew who told us he has been performing on NYC subways since December 2008. In that time, he has been ticketed, ejected, harassed and arrested multiple times despite the legality of performing for tips in subway stations.

Join The People’s Climate March

September 6, 2014 Daniel Adam, www.socialistaction.org Organize! Climate Change, Labor, March, New York City (NYC), Protest

The People’s Climate March, scheduled for Sept. 21 in New York City, is poised to live up to its promise of mobilizing the largest number of people that the U.S. has ever seen against the mass production of greenhouse gases. With more than 1000 endorsing organizations, buses scheduled to leave from more than 200 locations, alongside chartered trains (including three leaving from Connecticut and one from San Francisco), over 200,000 Facebook invites, and countless meetings and events around the country, the march will create major advances for the climate movement. By marching, participants will affirm for all to see that, at root, climate change is not a matter of isolated individual consumer decisions but of institutional forces that refuse to respond to the will of the majority. They will show that climate activists can go beyond local organizing on dispersed projects and can come together to articulate their vision. The absence of mass demonstrations for many years kept the movement from forging a visible political expression—until the marches against the Keystone XL pipeline in 2012 and 2013. This had allowed climate change to appear like a fringe issue of the relatively well-to-do, or simply something beyond the scope of human intervention. September will mark an advance from the fringes to the mainstream, and from paralysis to action. In particular, the participation of more than 30 unions presents a ground-breaking opening for labor and the climate movement. Endorsers include the Communication Workers of America, the Amalgamated Transit Union, 32BJ, the United Federation of Teachers, Transport Workers Union 100, US Labor Against the War, and other formations including machinists, electrical workers, farm workers, and a variety of food and service workers.

Fighting Poverty And Reducing Jail In Real Time

August 26, 2014 Julian Adler, www.talkpoverty.org Create! Mass Incarceration, New York City (NYC), Poverty, Prison

Many of us who work in the criminal justice system have come to understand the profound connection between poverty and mass incarceration. Put simply, individuals with criminal histories – even minor ones – find it exceedingly difficult to enter the workforce and provide for their families. One pragmatic response to this problem is to incarcerate fewer people, particularly in local jails. While much of the public debate and academic discourse focuses on the challenges of reducing federal and state prison enrollments, mass incarceration is a problem with a significant local dimension too. As of June 30, 2013, an estimated 731,208 persons in the U.S. were confined in local jails; a much larger total of 11.7 million persons were imprisoned in local jails at some point over the preceding year. More than 6 out of 10 of those jailed in the U.S. have yet to be convicted of any crime. Indeed, many of those held in pretrial detention are actually eligible for release yet they cannot afford to post bail – often nominal amounts of money. And contrary to popular thinking, the overwhelming majority of criminal prosecutions concern relatively minor offenses. In New York City, three out of four cases that make it to criminal court are misdemeanors – a total of more than 235,000 cases in 2012.

New York City’s East River Turns Into A Clean Pool For Swimming

August 25, 2014 Ashley Curtin, www.bullhorn.nationofchange.org Create! New York City (NYC), pollution, Water

With more than 14 bathhouses in Manhattan in the 1940s, New York City is no stranger to swimming in municipal waterways. Yet, during current times, people shudder at the sound of swimming in what have transformed into polluted waters. But one man’s concept will soon make swimming in New York’s East River safe and clean. Archie Coates, co-founder of +Pools, is teaming up with engineering and design firms, Arup and IDEO, to develop a 285,500-gallon swimming pool filled with river water for New Yorkers to safely swim and play in. And he is doing so by utilizing purification technology that conceptually resembles “gills of an oyster.” To make the innovation a reality, Coates first teamed up with scientists and environmentalists from the Columbia University. Since they determined that sewage made the East River unhealthy for humans, Coates was then able to push forward with the development of a “three-level filtration system made out of high-tech ‘geotextiles’ that have previously been used in wastewater treatment.” The environmentally friendly purification process moves the water through the system and microbes are removed by the “geotextiles” at each level. This is similar to how oysters use their gills to filter water for survival in the ocean.

Chokehold Death Proves Need For Body Cameras

August 18, 2014 Caitlin Nolan , Bill Hutchinson, www.nydailynews.com Create! New York City (NYC), police brutality, Surveillance

In response to the case of a Staten Island man who died in a cop’s chokehold, the New York City Public Advocate called Monday on Mayor de Blasio to curb bad police behavior by equipping officers with body cameras. Letitia James implored de Blasio, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton and the City Council to support her proposal for a body-cam pilot program, saying, “We need action today!” “Simply rewriting the rules is not enough,” said James, apparently referring to Bratton’s plan to retrain all officers in the use of force in the wake of Eric Garner’s death. Garner died July 17 when a plainclothes police officer put him in an NYPD-prohibited chokehold while trying to arrest him for selling bootleg cigarettes on a Staten Island street. A witness videotaped the incident in which Garner repeatedly pleaded “I can’t breathe” before going lifeless on the sidewalk. The city medical examiner has ruled the death a homicide.

Protesters Crash Stand With Israel Event

July 15, 2014 Anna Merlan, www.blogs.villagevoice.com Resist! Israel, Mass Media, New York City (NYC), Palestine, Protest

Here's a question: why would the New York City Council and various other local and state politicians decide to wade into the miserable, never-ending, blood-filled dogpile that is the Israeli/Palestinian conflict? In what way does a press conference on the Middle East dovetail with the actual business of our elected officials here in New York? Could a press conference called "New York Stands with Israel" possibly serve any other concrete purpose except to be a magnet for controversy? Seriously, how could this possibly end well? And yet that's exactly what happened this morning on the steps of City Hall, where a passel of elected officials held a press conference to declare their support for Israel in the midst of this latest bout of sad, terrifying sectarian violence. You'll absolutely be able to predict what happened next.

Worker-Owners Cheer Creation Of Co-op Development Fund

July 7, 2014 Rebecca Burns, www.inthesetimes.com Create! Budgets, Cooperatives, New York City (NYC)

In a victory for new economy advocates, the New York City Council passed a budget last week that will create a $1.2 million fund for the growth of worker-owned cooperative businesses. The investment is the largest a municipal government in the U.S. has ever made in the sector, breaking new ground for the cooperative development movement. Melissa Hoover, executive director of the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives and the Democracy at Work Institute, hails the New York City Council’s move as “historic.” “We have seen bits and pieces here and there, but New York City is the first place to make an investment at that level,” she says. New York’s cooperative development fund was the brainchild of a coalition of community groups—including the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, the New York City Network of Worker Cooperatives, the Democracy at Work Institute, Make the Road New York and others—that came together to stage a series of public forums and advocacy days to secure widespread support for the initiative on the City Council. Over the next year, the fund will provide financial and technical assistance in the planned launch of 28 new cooperatives and the continued growth of 20 existing cooperatives, supporting the creation of 234 jobs in total.

Bronx Protesters Demand Justice For Death Of Mentally Ill Inmate

June 29, 2014 Aviva Stahl, www.gothamist.com Resist! Mental Illness, New York City (NYC), Prison, Protest, Solitary Confinement

When 39-year-old Bradley Ballard was found naked on the floor of a mental health observation unit on Rikers Island last fall, his body was covered in feces and a rubber band was tied around his genitals. He had been held in isolation for seven days after making a lewd gesture at a female guard. On June 3, the Medical Examiner declared Ballard’s death a homicide, finding that he had been denied access to medication despite being diagnosed with both diabetes and schizophrenia. The AP previously reported that while guards looked into Ballard’s cell repeatedly in the days leading up to his death, they declined to enter, and when his door was finally opened on September 10, Ballard was too weak to move. He only received one visit from mental health staff, which lasted about 15 seconds. Ballard’s primary cause of death was listed as diabetic ketoacidosis, brought on by a lack of insulin. Thus far, however, no Correction officers have been fired or indicted in relation to Ballard’s death. Yesterday afternoon, about twenty-five people protested outside the Bronx District Attorney’s Office to demand criminal prosecution in Ballard’s death.

Facebook Fights Broad Search By Government

June 28, 2014 Vindu Goel and James C. McKinley Jr., www.nytimes.com Resist! ACLU, Facebook, Law, New York City (NYC), Privacy

Facebook and the Manhattan district attorney’s office are in a bitter fight over the government’s demand for the contents of hundreds of Facebook accounts. In confidential legal documents unsealed on Wednesday, Facebook argues that Manhattan prosecutors last summer violated the constitutional right of its users to be free of unreasonable searches by demanding nearly complete account data on 381 people, ranging from pages they had liked to photos and private messages. When the social networking company fought the data demands, a New York judge ruled that Facebook had no standing to contest the search warrants since it was simply an online repository of data, not a target of the criminal investigation. To protect the secrecy of the investigation, the judge also barred the company from informing the affected users, a decision that prevented the individuals from fighting the data requests themselves. The case, which is now on appeal, pits the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches by the government against the needs of prosecutors to seek evidence from the digital sources where people increasingly store their most sensitive data.

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