A Black Agenda radio commentary by Glen Ford
We were right when we said it in the Sixties. The police are an occupation army in the Black community. Secret NYPD tapes reveal the cops’ quota system for stopping and frisking hundreds of thousands of innocent minority residents every year. But when New Yorkers of color are victimized by crime, they “are often threatened with arrest, themselves, by belligerent detectives trying to fudge the figures.”
Secret NYPD Tapes Document Routine, Massive Police Racism
A Black Agenda radio commentary by Glen Ford
“The New York City police are revealed as an occupying army that views residents of color as an enemy population.”
The New York City police force systematically withholds protective services from minority victims of crime, while simultaneously stopping and frisking hundreds of thousands of innocent Black and brown citizens on the streets for no legitimate reason. Hundreds of hours of secret recordings by a disgruntled New York City cop prove beyond question that the most aggressive forms of institutional racism are the guiding management principles of the NYPD. Just as the Black Panther Party and others charged two generations ago, the New York City police are revealed as an occupying army that views residents of color as an enemy population.The predatory nature of New York City policing is captured, digitally, in a police lieutenant’s exhortation to his officers at the beginning of their shift. "You're working in Bed-Stuy,” says the shift supervisor, “where everyone's probably got a warrant."
The recordings were made during a continuous 16-month period in 2008 and 2009, and are the basis of a series of articles now running in the Village Voice newspaper. They show how the relentless pressures exerted by billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his top police brass result in a total perversion of the criminal justice system in places like Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant section, where the cop with a pocket digital recorder was assigned. The turncoat cop’s recordings show that the police operate under a quota system, driven by their superiors to hand out vast quantities of summonses for petty offenses and to stop and frisk huge numbers of people. It is this quota system at the core of official police policy, that has resulted in two million innocent people being stopped and frisked on the streets of New York since 2004, close to 600,000 in 2009, alone. Eighty-five percent of the victims of this police state practice were Black or Latino – only 9 percent were white, although New York City is about 38 percent white. From roll call to end off shift, the New York police sweep the streets of non-white neighborhoods, stopping and searching more than fifteen hundred mostly Black and Brown pedestrians every day – the vast majority of whom are found to be carrying nothing illegal. Contrary to the police lieutenant's admonition to his officers, not everyone in places like Bedford-Stuyvesant has an outstanding warrant – but the police routinely act as if they do.
“Police systematically discourage residents from reporting actual crimes committed against them.”
This has nothing to do with fighting crime. In fact, the secret recordings show that police systematically discourage residents from reporting actual crimes committed against them, in order to keep the crime statistics artificially low, and thus make the top brass and the mayor look good. Citizens that complain of being assaulted or robbed are often threatened with arrest, themselves, by belligerent detectives trying to fudge the figures. Felonies are routinely downgraded to misdemeanors - not because of clogged courts, but to give the appearance of a safer city. After police suppression of crime statistics was exposed in Bedford-Stuyvesant, preventing the cops from intimidating victims, felony assault statistics jumped 76 percent.
The Black and brown residents of New York City are stopped, harassed and abused by the millions, while the real crimes committed against them are swept under the rug by an occupation army in blue, masquerading as law enforcement. For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
Kwesi Pratt Jr. is General Secretary of the Socialist Movement of Ghana.
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