NYPD: De Blasio’s And Bratton’s “Broken Windows” Will Cause Broken Necks Through “Lynch Holds”

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Pregnant Miller….

[Speaking Truth To Power]

Will Mayor’s de Blasio’s reported acceptance of the “broken windows” police policy prove to be just as damaging to the Black community—as Stop-and-Frisk was?

Last Saturday a New York Police Department (NYPD) officer used a chokehold on 27-year-old Rosan Miller, a pregnant mother.

Pictures and video taken of the assault show Miller being choked in view of her young daughter. Miller—who was unhurt—was given a summons for disorderly conduct. Her husband, Moses, who stepped in to protect his wife was charged with resisting arrest and obstruction of justice. He also said he was called the N-word.

This latest incident of the chokehold—which was, supposedly, banned by NYPD brass over 20 years—comes in the aftermath of the chokehold killing of 43-year-old Staten Island resident Eric Garner by the NYPD’s Officer Daniel Pantaleo. Officer Pantaleo has several complaints against him. He’s also accused of having strip searched two men in public.

Mr. Garner was accused of selling untaxed cigarettes—even though many people say he had actually just broken up a fight before his NYPD killers came along. When he objected to the police street-side interrogation he was choked from behind by Officer Pantaleo—who also shoved his knee into Garner’s head—and was brought to the ground by several cops. An asthmatic, Garner died soon.

Both of these incidents are happening as the administration of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio settles itself into power after the departure of Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Speaking after the killing of Garner, Reverend Al Sharpton signaled the need for federal action to stop the use of the chokehold by NYPD officers: “We cannot just depend, and this is important, on police policy to stop the chokehold. We need a federal precedent.”

This latest incident started when the pregnant Miller and her family were, apparently, grilling food on the sidewalk adjacent to their home. “This is all over a grill. This is about grilling in front of her house,” said former Councilman Charles Barron. “She was grilling in front of her home, not committing any crime. We want these people out of our community.”

Councilman Barron isn’t wrong. Quite frankly, too many of the White cops aren’t different from the criminal element they’re supposed to be protecting the community from. Many have shown they have no business policing Black communities.

Let’s face it: many of these cops are not in Black communities to “protect and serve.” They’re there to criminalize and victimize a community that has been offered up as the sacrificial lamb for fork-tongued politicians who use Black communities as stepping-stones to higher office.

Whenever these sanctimonious scoundrels talk about “law and order” they’re talking about controlling the lives of Black people– “tough on crime” is the codeword. Criminalizing Black people is a trick used to whitewash the history of criminality that has been visited upon our people in this America.

Many often tell us it’s unfair to generalize all cops because of the behavior of a few. Indeed, cops are just people like the rest of us and there are surely decent people among police. However, far too many “good cops” are aiding and abetting those who perpetrate unspeakable acts with their silence.

Until “good cops” defy the “Blue Wall” their silence makes them part and parcel of the crimes of the so-called “bad apples” against the community they are supposed to protect.

But, it’s much too easy to talk about the racist, fascist elements in the NYPD. We all know of the Justin Volpe types; he’s the man who sodomized Abner Louima with a plunger.  We often talk about the actions of certain police—and divorce it from those who hire them.

Why do we hardly speak about those who write police policy? You know, those who decide what the quota of arrests should be—and who decide which crimes should be enforced in which community.

By now, we should be clear that the Black community is policed far different from how White communities are policed. For example, if police arrested White drug users the way the do Black drug users how many millions of White people would America’s “justice” system have in prisons now?

African Americans account for only 12% of drug users nationally, individuals incarcerated for drug use are 38% African American.

Black America is controlled in nearly every respect by the whims of current majority White America. So long as we live in segregated communities shouldn’t we use that to our benefit and demand that police policy reflects the expectations of the community?

Presently, police policy is driven by Whites. Where in America would a White community allow police policy to be dictated by Black outsiders? Would they allow Black police to invade their neighborhood chokehold a pregnant woman —or kill a man, as happened with Eric Garner while they do nothing?

Black political representation is an oxymoronic term these days. Where is the creative legislative bills and plans these people should be championing to bring self-determination and self-reliance to Black communities? Why aren’t we hearing them speak out about what they plan to do to rein in these vicious practices that are targeting our communities?

Hopefully, we’re not assuming that because we have Mayor de Blasio, who has a Black wife and bi-racial kids, that these police problems will slowly evaporate? They won’t. Until we take the bull by the horns.

One of the most disturbing pieces of evidence that should’ve dampened any hopes we had that NYPD abuses would cease under this administration is Mayor de Blasio’s, reported, backing of the so-called “broken windows” policing policy—of which new Commissioner William Bratton is a champion of.

“Broken windows” will ensure Blacks are harassed, in part, because a similar goal seems to lie at its core, as was the goal in Stop-and-Frisk: balancing budgets off the backs of Black with quotas the NYPD tells us don’t exist.

Thanks to cops of conscience who exposed the quota regime —like Officer Adil Polanco, Officer Adrian Schoolcraft and Officer Craig Matthews—we know the NYPD lied when it denied there were quota mandates.

“Our primary job is not to assist anybody,” Officer Polanco revealed. “Our primary job is to get those numbers.”

We should be clear: many of these quotas are meant to further impoverish Black communities—that are being disproportionately targeted for citations. These citations represent another form of tax against Black communities.

Commissioner Bratton’s “zero tolerance” policy is one of those police policy that only focuses on Black communities to inflate crime statistics and justify the heavy-handed manner in which they patrol Black neighborhoods to the exclusion of exclusive enclaves. Would a prominent pregnant White woman be arrested for grilling outside of her home—anyplace in New York City? Of course not.

Black constituents in Black communities must seriously think about demanding decentralized police forces. This idea is in no way a novel one. Across America there are many places where individual areas and municipalities have their own police force—including right here in New York State.

For example, on Long Island many local towns—like Rockville Center, Hempstead, Freeport to name a few—have their own police who are responsible for the primary policing in their immediate areas.

Moreover, in many states certain regions have sheriffs who’re voted into office by the people in their district—which fosters a level of accountability we will never see in New York City if we continue to allow these folk to rule over us.

It’s time Black people in New York City to pressure politicians to craft similar formulas to address the problem of prejudiced policing—like using a chokehold on a pregnant Black woman or strangling an unarmed man who presented no threat whatsoever.

Garner’s killing resembled a lynching with Pantaleo as executioner.
 

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