"The platform also called for an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people."

[EFerrari]

Last edited Sat Jun 16, 2012, 05:32 PM - Edit history (1)

A lot of you probably know that there will be a silent march in NYC this Sunday, Fathers' Day, in protest of Stop And Frisk. Occupy Wall Street will be live blogging it. I'm still trying to find out if there will be solidarity events in other locations.

Ben Jealous of the NAACP has taken Bloomberg and the whole racist, Constitution shredding, establishment on and I hope we see support for him and for this fight all over this country. I read last night that 35 LGBT organizations have endorsed this protest so it looks like, constituencies that have been singled out for police harassment are taking this to heart and stepping up in support.

Reading around this morning, I found this story about an LAPD attack on Black Panther offices. It happened just a few days after the FBI and the Chicago PD killed Fred Hampton.

Black Panthers to Gather to Commemorate 'Victory' at 41st & Central
L.A. Watts Times, News Feature, Thandisizwe Chimurenga, Dec 8, 2009



Dec. 8, 2009, marks the 40th anniversary of the Los Angeles Police Department's shootout at the Southern California Black Panther Party's headquarters.

Local members of the party will honor those who survived the altercation with a program at 6 p.m. at the Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research at 6120 S. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles.

Entitled "Victory: A Day of Remembering," the program will include eyewitness accounts from members involved in the shootout, as well as a viewing of the film "41st and Central" by filmmaker Gregory Everett.

The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP), co-founded in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, was a community-based organization with a platform that called for a number of rights and liberties for black people, including free healthcare, full employment, decent housing, and decent education. The platform also called for an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people.

http://www.labeez.org/2009/12/black-panthers-to-gather-to-commemorate-victory-at-41st-central.php

This has been a long fight and maybe it will never be over. The operations of NYPD today are very similar if not identical to operations when COINTELPRO was being conducted in the 60s, with the Federal security apparatus funding, advising and arming police departments against their own citizens. Back to the future.

But I hope people try to find a way to support the march on Sunday, to support Ben Jealous and to force an end to Stop & Frisk.

[EFerrari]

1. A few recent articles on Stop & Frisk

A “Silent March” Against the Police Stop-and-Frisk State
http://blackagendareport.com/content/%E2%80%9Csilent-march%E2%80%9D-against-police-stop-and-frisk-state

Rev. Al Sharpton Takes NYPD’s ‘Stop-And-Frisk’ Law To Task With Upcoming Silent March
http://newsone.com/2019713/stop-and-frisk-al-sharpton/

LGBT Groups Join Stop-and-Frisk Silent March
http://www.edgenewyork.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=local&sc2=features&sc3=&id=134221

Silent March on Father's Day to Fight Stop-And-Frisk
http://www.ahherald.com/newsbrief-mainmenu-2/monmouth-county-news/13188-silent-march-on-fathers-day-to-fight-stop-and-frisk

End Stop and Frisk: Silent March Against Racial Profiling
http://www.nysenate.gov/event/2012/jun/17/end-stop-and-frisk-silent-march-against-racial-profiling

End Stop and Frisk: Silent March Against Racial Profiling
Public Event · By NAACP
https://www.facebook.com/events/341929132541010/

Labor leaders appeal to members to join June 17 silent march to protest stop-and-frisk
http://www.uft.org/news/labor-leaders-appeal-members-join-june-17-silent-march-protest-stop-and-frisk

[Judi Lynn]

2. Ending this nightmare for so many should have been accomplished long ago. It's so long overdue. n/t

[EFerrari]

3. Jim Crow has risen from the mostly dead. We can't be good with that.

Bloomberg is using our tax money harass and persecute people of color.

It has to stop now.

[Zalatix]

4. They should call it "THIS! IS! SPARTA!! 300 in Reverse"

"Eleven people ... the majority of them teenagers, 19 and under, in a five-hour shootout with over 300 police officers, including SWAT," Everett said. "It's SWAT's first public mission and they break out 16 millimeter film cameras to film the event, no one is murdered, and they (the Panthers) eventually beat the case ... this is the climax of the Black Power Movement in America."

300 cops, including 40 SWAT, couldn't take down just 19 people, and those 19 won in court? That's just awesome beyond words.

[Solly Mack]

5. K&R

[EFerrari]

6. Thank you, Solly Mack.

[sabrina 1]

7. "The numbers speak for themselves and the story they tell is frightening and grossly unacceptable."

Appalling Number of Stop and Frisk cases laced with Bigotry

During the first three months of this year, police officers made 203,500 stops of civilians, up from 188,326 during the January-March period of 2011, according to data supplied to the City Council by the New York Police Department. If the shocking trend continues unabated, the NYPD’s notorious “stop and frisk” policy would shatter an appalling record set just last year when cops made on average 2,200 stops every twenty four hours. What makes the picture so frightening in a City which considers itself a bastion of liberalism and justice is the ethnic disparity behind the numbers.

Stated simply, while young Black and Hispanic males in the 14-24 age group account for less than 5 per cent of the City’s population, these youths made up 41.6 per cent of the New Yorkers who were detained and frisked last year. It’s a trend that has continued this year and can reach a new high. If you were in any doubt that what was happening was influenced by the color of the victims skins, the fact that Blacks accounted for 54 per cent of the stops and Hispanics 33 per cent but whites a mere 9 per cent should erase the doubts. What’s so troubling is that a mere 5 per cent of the stop and frisk victims were arrested and an equal number received a summons in the first three months. In other words, 90 per cent of those stop and frisk broke no law and what the police officers did was unnecessarily interfered with the lawful behavior of young Black and Hispanic males who were doing nothing more than walking the streets.

Several days before these numbers were made public, some lawmakers at the state and City levels condemned the NYPD Stop and frisk policy and called for dramatic reforms that would curb the naked abuse of law-abiding citizens. Both State Senator Kevin Parker and Assemblyman Nick Perry quite rightly complained to this news organization that the policy was devoid of any element of fairness and therefore should be changed. They played key roles, along with State Senator Eric Adams in encouraging the legislature in Albany to pass a law that is forcing the NYPD to drop its practice of keeping records of the stops which didn’t lead to arrests. Maintaining those files on unwarranted stops can come back to haunt the youths later in life when they seek employment.

Like Parker, Perry and Adams, Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the Civil Liberties Union, correctly described stop and frisk as an “out-of-control policy” whose victims are by and large Black and Hispanic men.

Another shameful chapter in the history of the NYPD.

Thank you for the tread, EFerrari, it's way past time for this to stop.