The @nytimes right now is doing more damage to social & racial justice than any carceral force out there. Legitimizing a blatant lie (police budgets up everywhere & still no health/safety) by the architect of racist overpolicing. This is outrageous & dangerous stuff.
Bill Bratton is the architect of mass surveillance, broken windows, & targeted, racist policing in 3 different major cities (NYC, LA, Boston). When NY finally passed much-needed reforms he came back to lie & fearmonger it away. Even @nytimes ed board called him out. Now this.
Look at this gushing headline & this professional legacy photo. Designed to make you think: Respected & venerated public servant! Personable. Likeable. Trusting. Just hanging out and “dishing” the truth with real talk. He’s a bigot responsible for devastating Black communities.
Here’s racist Bill Bratton last year. Calling young black men same inhumane language the Exonerated Five were called. A life dedicated to hurting & jailing Black & Brown people. Honored with a puff piece in the @nytimes.
Here’s Bill Bratton spreading lies told by police who had tried to weaponize a tragedy as propaganda to undermine criminal justice reforms. Nassau police were forced to retract and clarify after they were caught. Bratton kept pushing the lie anyway.
Here’s the @nytimes own editorial board calling Bratton out 2 years ago as a “naysayer” for “stubbornly arguing” against & lying against critical reforms. 2 years later the paper honors him with a powerful platform to peddle these same kind of blatant lies.
I just can’t over the brazenness of the lie. *He’s literally stating police have been defunded* when the opposite is true. And then proclaims this fictional defunding (not $11 billion we continue to lavish on the NYPD) is the cause of crime. WHERE ARE THE FACT CHECKERS, @nytimes?
There are literally thousands of organizers & people w/ direct experience & community members & practitioners & defenders who can provide the public w/ key truths at this pivotal moment for social justice. Why give this brutal, proven liar any more air than he already has?
The @nytimes rejects *the truth* written by extraordinary advocates and activists with nuanced takes on what will truly make us safe & end systemic injustice every single day.
Fuming.
When you read a headline blaming “reforms” for “crime,” think:

*We spend more on policing, prosecution & prisons than anywhere else in all history. Existence of “crime” underscores the complete failure of current "solutions" & the insanity of continuing to invest billions in it.
Meantime I’ll just keep screaming it:

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More from @ScottHech

29 May
“Mom, please call them,” Jane wrote in a letter. I haven’t felt the baby all day.”

A young pregnant woman was caged for months pretrial in Texas. Thrown in solitary. No calls. Deprived food. Had to order cough drops to numb her hunger. She lost the baby. theappeal.org/pregnant-women…
“Jane’s experience isn’t an anomaly in Texas.”

SheddingLight.in is a digital archive that shares letters & spoken testimonies of people incarcerated during the COVID-19 pandemic who have survived abuse inside the state’s jails. Some have been held pretrial for years:
Horror in Texas: "I have a 5 y/o little girl & a 4 y/o little boy. I've lost the rights to them since in jail." Kdee suffers mental health issues & seizures. Caged a year pretrial. Denied medication. Hogtied. Attempted suicide. This is not okay. Torture.
Read 12 tweets
28 May
“The Boat.” Otherwise known as the Vernon C. Bain Center. A massive ship thats part of Rikers Island just floating in the East River. Cages 600 people. Pretrial. Nearly all Black or Brown. 47,326-tons. 5 stories. As large as 2 football fields. $161 million to build.
To get in you walk across this metal mesh enclosed tunnel bridge over water. So strange looking down and seeing water. Inside they have a wooden model of the ship in a glass case. Last time I went had elaborate Halloween decorations in intake & stringed autumn leaves on the wall.
Far more foreboding in person. And I’ve heard from folks that you can’t tell you’re on a boat when you’re inside. Not true. You can feel the swaying of this massive prison ship.
Read 4 tweets
28 May
CRISIS IN TEXAS: 40,000 caged pretrial. State violence, denial of medical care, starvation, solitary, infection. Today, this young man's death ruled a homicide by jail guards. Yet *right now, Texas poised to pass a racist law to significantly expand pretrial caging.* Thread:
Jaquaree Simmons. You probably haven't heard of him. Just 23. Caged pretrial in TX. Called mom almost every day from his jail cell. Crying & begging for help. One week later, found dead. That was 3 months ago. His family still has not been given any info. click2houston.com/news/local/202…
The night before his death, Jaquaree was attacked by a "detention officer." Hit the floor. "He’s small at 5-foot-3 & 125 pounds." Jail saying there's no video. “We still haven’t seen Jaquaree." Texas's answer back to his family: we're gonna pass a law to cage even more.
Read 12 tweets
27 May
APPALLING: Cuomo just nominated Madeline Singas to be a judge on the highest court in NY. Singas hasn't just been brutally carceral as Nassau County DA. She also has been one of the most avid peddlers of fear & lies over justice reforms in NY. Just a few examples of many here:
After discovery reform passed in NY, Nassua DA & police were weaponizing a tragic murder to repeal it so they could continue to withhold evidence. Public defenders called them out. Forced to admit "no direct correlation." But the damage was already done.
After bail reform passed, General Counsel to Nassau DA Madeline Singas, one of most ardent opponents of bail & discovery reform, was training prosecutors around NY on tricks & loopholes “to jail people that otherwise would be released under the new law.”cityandstateny.com/articles/polit…
Read 7 tweets
27 May
Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum:

Hundreds are still imprisoned in Oregon based upon a Jim Crow era law designed to silence Black jurors. You have fought against every effort locally & in the Supreme Court for fair trials.

Their lives matter. Practice what you preach.
You rejected other state leaders and joined Louisiana in the Supreme Court to maintain the racist KKK stain of non-unanimous juries in Oregon. Even Justice Kavanaugh disagreed with your extreme position.
Despite your fight in the Supreme Court to maintain the racist status quo, you still claimed to be happy about the ruling striking it down. Stated Oregon would be able to move past "embarrassing stain on our progressive state." But you kept fighting.
Read 9 tweets
24 May
THREAD: One week ago Justice Kavanaugh (left) ruled 100s still imprisoned by an Oregon law even he admitted was "rooted in racism" were out of luck bc they were convicted too long ago. Oregon's "progressive" AG Ellen Rosenblum (right) could fix this injustice today. Refuses to.
First, a background on the law: Most think of the KKK in terms of physical violence. Intimidation. But they also used legal & legislative process to pass laws exacting legal violence. In Oregon they pushed a law to silence jurors. "Non-unanimous juries."
In Louisiana in 1898, the KKK pushed non-unanimous juries to “establish the supremacy of the white race" & “ensure African-American juror service would be meaningless.” In 1934, Oregon joined them. At the time of the law’s passage there were *34,000+ active KKK members in Oregon.
Read 26 tweets

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