The N.Y.P.D. Clamps Down on Jazz...

[Indi Guy]

The N.Y.P.D. Clamps Down on Jazz
by Liliana Segura

At 8:45 a.m. on a frigid January morning, the protesters are warming up:

“Mic Check!” “Mic Check!”

“Mic Check!” “Mic Check!”
Joseph “Jazz” Hayden speaks to New York 1 during the Courthouse Protests. Allthingsharlem.com.

Outside the New York Criminal Court Building on Centre Street a crowd of about 50 huddles behind a row of metal barricades as a few N.Y.P.D. officers look on. A red sign reads “WE ARE IN A POLICE STATE.” Next up is Kassandra Frederique of the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA); her breath visible as she speaks, a chilly cameraman from NY1 a few feet away.

“What would you do with $75 million?” Frederique cries. “The City Council could use $75 million to do better things for our community. Instead they’re using $75 million to pen up black men!” It’s the amount the DPA says was spent arresting New Yorkers for marijuana possession in 2010.

Although e-mails have gone out under the banner “Occupy the Courthouse,” this isn’t an OWS action, per se, nor is it a rally against stop-and-frisk. In their parkas and winter hats, the crowd is here to support one man in particular: 70-year-old community activist Joseph Hayden, better known as “Jazz.” Or as Frederique calls him, “a freedom fighter for our rights.”

Born and raised in Harlem, Jazz technically lives in Yonkers now. But “I just sleep up there,” he says. “My life is in Harlem.” Besides running a local media company called Still Here Harlem—and covering virtually every consequential event on the community calendar—Jazz has spent the past few years monitoring the police presence after dark. Armed with a flipcam at all times, he tapes the N.Y.P.D. carrying out stop-and-frisks and warrantless car searches, a ubiquitous sight above 125th Street especially on Fridays and Saturdays when, as he puts it, “the police go on safari in communities of color.” He posts them on his website, All Things Harlem.

This summer he posted a video of two plainclothes police officers pulling over a pair of black men and searching their car. It was at the intersection of 126th Street and Adam Clayton Powell, near the State Office Building, and around the corner from the Seville Lounge, where Jazz is a regular. (“That’s the last waterhole for old timers like me,” he says.) The corner is a “hotspot” for stop-and-frisks. “Every time it happens I run out of the bar and everybody goes, ‘Aw man, there goes Jazz again.’ I keep telling them, listen, you can’t hide from them. You have to go at them...

Full -- http://www.brooklynrail.org/2012/02/local/the-nypd-clamps-down-on-jazz

[DCKit]

1. Somebody needs to tell the NYPD that the Supreme Court came down against this....

a couple of years ago. Then they had to tell the DC police twice to stop it.

Warrantless stops and searches were common (and published policy) in the Trinidad neighborhood and in my neighborhood (for anyone DWB or with out of state tags) for quite awhile.

[Indi Guy]

2. Stop It?! -- They've been escalating it over recent years!

I posted this in another thread:

Stop-and-Frisk Campaign: About the Issue

The NYPD’s stop-and-frisk practices raise serious concerns over racial profiling, illegal stops and privacy rights. The Department’s own reports on its stop-and-frisk activity confirm what many people in communities of color across the city have long known: The police are stopping hundreds of thousands of law abiding New Yorkers every year, and the vast majority are black and Latino.

An analysis by the NYCLU revealed that more than 4 million innocent New Yorkers were subjected to police stops and street interrogations from 2004 through 2011, and that black and Latino communities continue to be the overwhelming target of these tactics. Nearly nine out of 10 stopped-and-frisked New Yorkers have been completely innocent, according to the NYPD’s own reports:

• In 2004, 315,483 New Yorkers were stopped by the police.
  279,754 were totally innocent (89 percent)
  156,056 were black (50 percent)
  90,468 were Latino (29 percent)
  29,000 were white (9 percent)
  
  
• In 2005, 399,043 New Yorkers were stopped by the police.
  351, 842 were totally innocent (88 percent)
  196,977 were black (49 percent)
  115, 395 were Latino (29 percent)
  40,837 were white (10 percent)
  
  
• In 2006, 508,540 New Yorkers were stopped by the police.
  458,104 were totally innocent (90 percent)
  268,610 were black (53 percent)
  148,364 were Latino (29 percent)
  53,793 were white (11 percent)
  
  
• In 2007, 468,732 New Yorkers were stopped by the police.
  407,923 were totally innocent (87 percent)
  242,373 were black (52 percent)
  142,903 were Latino (31 percent)
  52,715 were white (11 percent)
  
  
• In 2008, 531,159 New Yorkers were stopped by the police.
  465,413 were totally innocent (88 percent)
  271,602 were black (51 percent)
  167,111 were Latino (32 percent)
  57,407 were white (11 percent)
  
  
• In 2009, 575,304 New Yorkers were stopped by the police.
  504,594 were totally innocent (88 percent)
  308,941 were black (54 percent)
  179,576 were Latino (31 percent)
  53,466 were white (9 percent)
  
  
• In 2010, 601,055 New Yorkers were stopped by the police.
  517,458 were totally innocent (86 percent)
  317,642 were black (53 percent)
  190,491 were Latino (32 percent)
  55,083 were white (9 percent)
  
  
• During the first nine months of 2011, 514,461 New Yorkers were stopped by the police.
  451,469 were totally innocent (88 percent)
  276,664 were black (54 percent)
  157,487 were Latino (31 percent)
  46,934 were white (9 percent)

www.nyclu.org/issues/racial-justice/stop-and-frisk-practices

[font size="5" color="red"]They're not about to stop is unless pressure is brought to bear.[/font]