Thread by @DrSubini

Last night, our neighbor was arrested, and we stayed up to make sure he was not murdered in handcuffs. Here’s some things we learned and were reminded of: 1/

If you have a security camera, you do not have to give it to police if they do not have a warrant. They rang our bell, woke us up & asked for our security footage. We said no. They went and asked other people who also refused, and no one faced punishment for not providing 2/

You don’t have to let police into your apartment building without a warrant. They rang all the other apartments to try to get into our neighbors, they all didn’t answer or said no. 3/

Cops often break the law. When the cops couldn’t get in via permission of the people in the building, they climbed the security gate. We recorded it. The neighbor's door was closed at that time so they could not see anything inside 4/

You do not have talk to the cops–they convinced him to search his vehicle & apartment. They did not have a warrant. After they were done, they told the neighbor that the person that called the cops said they didn’t want to press charges. Ask for a lawyer and be quiet 5/

An arrest is traumatizing for all community members–especially for person being arrested. They kept him in cuffs for 2 hours though he never resisted. I filmed the whole thing, while others stood on the sidewalk to show support to our neighbor. We all were shaken & exhausted 6/

Before we all went to bed, we decided that we are going to have a block meeting and go through our rights as a community for police interactions. We need to build a community response team for conflict-that will take time & effort. But this will be a good first step 7/

Everyone is still processing it today. Our neighbor is embarrassed. The rest are frustrated while trying to assure our neighbor it's not their fault. The police treated it as routine & it was still traumatizing. The cops didn't make us any safer last night 8/8

In sum, buy @prisonculture and @dreanyc123's new book and let's figure out how to keep each other safe: No More Police: A Case for Abolition thenewpress.com/books/no-more-…

I am writing this because it was not remarkable-people get arrested all the time. Yet responding with at least 6 armed police, putting human beings in handcuffs & rifling through their belongings to make them prove their innocence is not a normal or healthy response to conflict.

Ok. Folks are wilding out in the replies so locking down for a while. As homie @Ebonyteach reminds us, tweets going viral is not a good thing for Black & Brown women. It often subjects us to harassment.