Post by bistro on Jan 26, 2015 18:35:57 GMT -5
Police Corruption Exposed
January 11, 2015 By Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report | Op-Ed www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/28479-police-corruption-exposed
The false narrative about the need for hyper policing has come crashing down and police themselves destroyed the well-cultivated propaganda. The awful truth which black people were well aware of is now out in the open for all to see. Police departments in the United States exist for the purpose of maintaining white people’s prerogatives as the group in control of everyone else. Enhancing public safety is a secondary consideration.
Under the Michael Bloomberg administration the New York City police department (NYPD) was infamous for its stop and frisk policies. Up to 575,000 people, almost all of them black or Latino, were stopped by police annually at the height of the stop and frisk program. A mysterious designation such as “furtive movement” was a reason for any person of color to be searched and harassed. Precinct commanders were pressured to meet quotas for stops, summonses, and arrests while also lying about the real crime rate in order to make the mayor and the NYPD look good.
All of that changed in the past two weeks. The NYPD have all but ceased writing summonses and making arrests and they have done so with the same zeal they once used in acting as the modern day slave patrol. The police union, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (PBA) ordered the slowdown in order to punish current mayor Bill de Blasio. The behavior seems odd because the mayor reappointed as commissioner the architect of stop and frisk, William Bratton. Despite this and other pro-police actions, de Blasio doesn’t meet enough of the police terrorism threshold to please New York’s “finest.”
Ironically, the police proved the point that many of their critics have made for years. The hyper policing inflicted on black communities is a sick farce, serving only the purposes of making white people feel comfortable about the numbers of black people in jails, and adding to the mass incarcerations system with the ancillary benefit of raising revenue and prison profits.
The mayor is part of a larger political problem. In our system elected officials have little incentive to fight for their constituents against the police state. There is no City Council member or state legislator who risks losing his or her office by genuflecting to the NYPD or any other PD in any other jurisdiction.
January 11, 2015 By Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report | Op-Ed www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/28479-police-corruption-exposed
The false narrative about the need for hyper policing has come crashing down and police themselves destroyed the well-cultivated propaganda. The awful truth which black people were well aware of is now out in the open for all to see. Police departments in the United States exist for the purpose of maintaining white people’s prerogatives as the group in control of everyone else. Enhancing public safety is a secondary consideration.
Under the Michael Bloomberg administration the New York City police department (NYPD) was infamous for its stop and frisk policies. Up to 575,000 people, almost all of them black or Latino, were stopped by police annually at the height of the stop and frisk program. A mysterious designation such as “furtive movement” was a reason for any person of color to be searched and harassed. Precinct commanders were pressured to meet quotas for stops, summonses, and arrests while also lying about the real crime rate in order to make the mayor and the NYPD look good.
All of that changed in the past two weeks. The NYPD have all but ceased writing summonses and making arrests and they have done so with the same zeal they once used in acting as the modern day slave patrol. The police union, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (PBA) ordered the slowdown in order to punish current mayor Bill de Blasio. The behavior seems odd because the mayor reappointed as commissioner the architect of stop and frisk, William Bratton. Despite this and other pro-police actions, de Blasio doesn’t meet enough of the police terrorism threshold to please New York’s “finest.”
Ironically, the police proved the point that many of their critics have made for years. The hyper policing inflicted on black communities is a sick farce, serving only the purposes of making white people feel comfortable about the numbers of black people in jails, and adding to the mass incarcerations system with the ancillary benefit of raising revenue and prison profits.
The mayor is part of a larger political problem. In our system elected officials have little incentive to fight for their constituents against the police state. There is no City Council member or state legislator who risks losing his or her office by genuflecting to the NYPD or any other PD in any other jurisdiction.