“Broken Windows” And Why De Blasio Could Be A One-Termer

Last week a New York Police Department officer was suspended after a video emerged showing him kicking a suspect being arrested, now a group of NYPD officers are being investigated for bringing down Sandra Amezquita a five-months pregnant woman to the ground stomach-first and hand-cuffed when she tried to intervene when her son was being arrested last weekend.

Amezquita was given a summons for disorderly conduct.

These abuses by NYPD officers come in the wake of the chokehold killing of Eric Garner on Staten Island by officer Daniel Pantaleo on July 17.

The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President, Patrick Lynch, infamously and malevolently claimed Eric Garner’s wasn’t killed by a chokehold.

Shortly after Pantaleo’s killing another officer was captured on video applying chokehold to Rosan Miller a 7-months pregnant Black woman in Brooklyn as she was also arrested for allegedly barbecuing on the sidewalk in front of her home.

Shortly after that, male officers reportedly responding to a call about an altercation in Brooklyn dragged a half-naked woman out of her apartment when she opened the door responding to their knocks.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and his Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, soon after the Garner killing said the NYPD would start a retraining program of all officers on how to conduct arrests.

It’s way beyond a how-to-conduct-arrests problem and Mayor de Blasio knows it too. That’s why he used his son Dante in the famous commercial where he mentions abuses of stop-and-frisk. As mayor he’s suddenly forgotten?

Many officers on the NYPD force have no respect for the city’s Black citizens and don’t believe they are protected by the constitution. How could it be otherwise when both the mayor and police commissioner advocate a so-called “broken windows” policy, harsh and aggressive policing against Black and Latino citizens under the theory that fighting “minor crimes” (actually no crime at all in the case of Garner and others) will later deter “bigger crimes.”

The biggest crime is in fact the unemployment levels in Black and Latino communities.

“Broken windows” is no different from the discriminatory stop-and-frisk policing; stopping and frisking mostly Black and Latino males on the theory that if you stop enough of them eventually you’ll find some with weapons or illegal drugs, when in fact the statistic have proven otherwise.

Unless the mayor changes course and acknowledges the racism inherent in “broken windows” policing,  more abusive incidents will occur and relations between the NYPD and the Black and Latino community that was critical to de Blasio’s election  will continue to sour.

This voting group will remember in 3 1/2 years and de Blasio could be a one-termer due to his blind pursuit of Bill Bratton’s vision of policing:  “us” against “them.”