Demonstrators Want Police Officer Arrested For Shooting Unarmed Bronx Teen

[Comrade Grumpy]

Since killer cops and vigilantes seem to be getting some much deserved attention these days, here's another:

http://www.ny1.com/content/top_stories/158511/demonstrators-want-police-officer-arrested-for-shooting-unarmed-bronx-teen

A rally was held by a Bronx police precinct Thursday night, as advocates demanded that the police officer who killed unarmed 18-year-old Ramarley Graham last month should be arrested and face criminal charges.

Ramarley Graham, 18, was shot last month by Police Officer Richard Haste, who along with several narcotics agents chased the teen into his house on East 229th Street in Wakefield after an alleged drug deal.

Police say Haste shot Graham in the bathroom as the teen tried to flush marijuana down the toilet, mistakenly thinking that the young man had a weapon.

Ramarley Graham On Thursday, Graham's family and their supporters made the second of 18 weekly marches, in honor of Graham's 18 years of life, from their East 229th Street home to the 47th police precinct in Williamsbridge.

________

The same day, demonstrators went to Bloomberg's residence to protest the bogus mass arrests of pot smokers in the city, some 50,000 last year. (New York has decriminalized pot possession, but NYPD routinely stops-and-frisks young people of color, forces them to empty their pockets, then charges them with possession in public, a misdemeanor, and jails them for a day or so pending arraignment.)

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2012/mar/29/protestors_challenge_nyc_mayor_m

[Comrade Grumpy]

1. Auto kick. A zillion threads on Trayvon, not one comment on Ramarley Graham?

[csziggy]

2. We're killing too many young people over drugs

Whether suspicion of drugs or actual, it really doesn't matter. Even if they are not outright killed, their lives effectively end when they are convicted. Once that happens they cannot get jobs, education, or find a new way of life.

And it is far too high a percentage of young people of color whose lives are destroyed this way. A white kid caught with a joint will often just get sent home maybe do community service or spend time in a plush rehab facility. A black or Latino kid is likely to serve time in prison for the same offense.

I wonder how many young people who in the years of the drug wars lost their futures would have been our top scientists, innovators or leaders? What has our society lost by losing those people to the pointless criminalization of drugs?

[EFerrari]

3. I'm so glad to see pushback, finally.

Enough of letting killers in uniform skate.

[lunatica]

4. NYC police are beginning to scare me

They're the closest thing we have to a police state. After seeing Rachel Maddow's and Richard Engel's documentary, "Day of Destruction, Decade of War" there is no doubt NYC cops are a police state.

[Comrade Grumpy]

5. NYPD is too big for its britches and largely unaccountable.

It's emblematic of the institutional problem we have with law enforcement across the country.

I want cops who are uniformed social workers, not bullet-headed storm troopers with twitchy trigger fingers.

[Uncle Joe]

6. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Comrade Grumpy.

[Agony]

7. Kick dammit

[fascisthunter]

8. Did the Neo-nazis in America decide to infiltrate America's Police Force?

WTF is going on?

[countryjake]

9. K&R!