NYPD rioting & assaulting civilians in NYC. This billboard last month. Times Square. Across from NYPD station. “Hey NYPD. It’s us. NYC residents. The ones who pay your salary. We paid $300 million to settle your lawsuits. You paid nothing. We need to talk.”
The $300 million to settle NYPD lawsuits over the last five years could instead fund proven non-police violence interruption programs and summer youth employment in every neighborhood in NYC for the next 5 years.
The $327 million per year that NYC residents pay for police in schools with no impact on public safety, could instead fund full four-year scholarships for over 4000 students to attend NY state colleges.
The $1 billion NYC residents pay in just overtime for NYPD could instead house every single one of the 14,000 homeless families now living in NYC. Then pay a year of rent for 7,000 families out of work and at risk of eviction because of the pandemic. With $400 million to spare.
Check out Need-To-Talk.com, a simple, yet powerful site that asks people to imagine a better way to prevent violence, support our youth, and remedy homelessness.
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Watching Chris Hayes in MSNBC right now. Reminded about the time I randomly met him in the first week of Trump presidency. In front of the federal court in Brooklyn as the ACLU argued the first Muslim Ban case. Late night & cold. Thousands of people outside chanting. Short story:
Was at JFK airport earlier doing legal volunteering & protesting. Had gotten home & was just getting ready to crawl into bed when I got word a Brooklyn judge was about to hear the first case arguing for an injunction of the policy. Bundled up & raced to the court 3 miles away.
I wanted to try to get into the courtroom to actually watch the argument. When I got there hundreds of people were already outside chanting. I worked my way to the front. I had clerked for two judges in the courthouse & knew the court officers. They weren’t letting people in yet.
I’ve watched hundreds of videos of NYPD policing protests since May. People make light of them, but bicycle cops have been among the most violent & brutal. Just last night video of attacking w/ bikes & dragging a protestor by the neck. This train of bicycle cops is ominous.
The NYPD is *unreformable.* Despite decades of reform, they're still using banned chokeholds. Cars, chemicals, bicycles & batons as weapons. Conduct that, if committed by people I represented, would be prosecuted as violent felonies. Wrote on it here: nbcnews.com/think/opinion/…
The best and most unexpected part of this video as it :32 when some dude just nonchalantly walks behind her in a t-shirt reading something & paying her no attention whatsoever like he has no idea she’s even there.
“Kettling” is a hyper-violent, dangerous, escalation tactic by police. Traps a crowd of people in a confined space for a prolonged time. Human Rights Watch just found the NYPD committed international human rights violations in the Bronx for the tactic in June. Tonight the NYPD:
The investigation by Human Rights Watch (@hrw) found that NYPD planned a coordinated assault on hundreds of Bronx protestors in June. Trapped them 10 minutes before curfew to justify attacking them for being out past curfew. Hundreds injured. All on film. hrw.org/news/2020/09/3…
The racist, brutal, lying NYPD commissioner Dermot Shea (@NYPDShea) didn’t just refuse to apologize for the brutal planned assault of thousands of peaceful protestors. He CONDEMNED the suggestion the NYPD did anything wrong. And Bill de Blasio stands behind this guy 100%.
In Texas a few years ago a judge raised a Black woman’s bail for “defying” his order to say “yes” instead of “yea.”
Can’t tell you how many times a person I have represented has gotten arrested & charged with criminal contempt for knocking on his moms door after an order protection issued she didn’t even want.