Mayor Bloomberg to Black Church: ‘Stop-and-Frisk’ Is Here to Stay

[Indi Guy]

Source: ColorLines

[font size="1"]by Jorge Rivas, Wednesday, June 13 2012, 12:12 PM EST[/font]

On Sunday New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg went to a black church in one of the city’s most heavily policed neighborhoods to let them know ‘Stop-and-Frisk’ isn’t going anywhere. Just after citing Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech the Mayor told the congregation at the First Baptist Church of Brownsville that ‘stop-and-frisk’ should be “mended, not ended.”...

“We are not going to walk away from a strategy that we know saves lives,” Bloomberg said on Sunday, the NY Times reports. “At the same time, we owe it to New Yorkers to ensure that stops are properly conducted and carried out in a respectful way.”...

"The NYPD’s own data undermine many of the Bloomberg administration’s justifications for the stop-and-frisk program,” New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman said in a statement. “Contrary to the mayor and police commissioner’s assertions, the massive spike in the number of stops has done little to remove firearms from the streets. Instead, it has violated the constitutional rights of millions of people and corroded the ability of communities of fathers and sons from communities of color to trust and respect the police.”

“Stop-and-frisk is the most massive local racial profiling program in the country,” said NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous...

Read more: http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/06/mayor_bloomberg_to_black_church_stop-and-frisk_is_here_to_stay.html

[Baitball Blogger]

1. This is as bad as a sloppy voter purge.

Destroying lives before they have a chance to begin.

[Indi Guy]

4. That's precisely what racial profiling does...

It's hard to believe that it's still going on so blatantly in our country.

[duhneece]

28. Just finished "The New Jim Crow: Mass INcarceration..."

The War on Drugs became a war on minorities and the poor, a war on people in other words.

[Baitball Blogger]

29. +1

[madrchsod]

2. urban renewal....

it it so impossible for people to live in an area. then tear down or rehab the area into multi-million dollar apartments.

[FiveGoodMen]

3. NYC: Get rid of that fucker.

[smirkymonkey]

24. We've been trying, but he's appointed himself dictator for life.

It's kind of amusing to think of what STUPID-ASS thing he's going to try to pull next though.

[4th law of robotics]

5. Are they just checking for guns

or are they also making sure the person isn't smuggling in salt or large soft drinks from neighboring states?

[awoke_in_2003]

8. they aren't checking for guns...

they are just harassing people for walking while black.

[KamaAina]

19. Or trans fats!

[BumRushDaShow]

6. The NYC City Council needs to wake up

and step up to the plate and stop letting this rethuglican-lite-opportunist run roughshod over the people while hurling cash around to his bankster buddies. It seems they have been MIA until today finally:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/13/nypd-oversight-bill-introduced-new-york-city-council_n_1593053.html?view=print&comm_ref=false

[Indi Guy]

7. NYPD Scandals...

...link from your page -- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/nypd-scandals

[hrmjustin]

9. My mother and i witnessed a stop and frisk 2 years ago when we had...

...to go to Staten Island. It was degrading to the 15 year old kid and left everybody at the bus stop angry. By the way the cop found nothing.

[24601]

10. Yeah, stop and frisk - looking for a 16 oz. soft drink.

[LiberalAndProud]

11. Where is the justice department?

Coming a week before a planned march to protest the policy, and just days after a group of minority lawmakers visited the Justice Department in Washington to call for an investigation of it, the speech was clearly an effort to address some of the criticism.

Where are our protections against illegal search? I wouldn't have believed we would have to tolerate this in our United States. Which liberty will we next sacrifice?

Appalling and frightening.

[Indi Guy]

15. "Appalling and frightening"...

If suburban whites were getting this kind of treatment by the NYPD -- imagine the outrage?

[Blue_Tires]

27. +1000

[EFerrari]

12. I hope Ben Jealous has this guy for lunch.

He can do it and we all need to back him up.

[Indi Guy]

13. Silent March to End Stop-and-Frisk ~ Organized by Rev. Al Sharpton, Ben Jealous and George Gresham..

[/div
[font size="3"][h3][br]Father's Day Sunday, June 17, 2012 @ 3pm - 110th Street west of Fifth Ave[/h3][/font][br]


Here's the link -- http://www.silentmarchnyc.org/

Facebook -- http://www.facebook.com/events/341929132541010/permalink/350989974968259/

Twitter -- https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23silentmarchnyc?q=%23silentmarchnyc

[EFerrari]

16. This is a natural project for Occupy because one of their goals is to take back the commons.

We should lobby for our local groups to participate in some way on that day.

[Indi Guy]

25. That would be great...

How would you go about making this happen?

[EFerrari]

26. It might already be happening. The thing to do is to read the Occupy twitter feeds to see

if joining the Father's Day march is being discussed. And if it isn't, suggesting it. Or, that would be one way.

[Indi Guy]

31. Seems like it's getting some play...

"The entire staff of the @nyclu nyc office will march this sunday join us!" http://on.fb.me/KC21cE (Facebook page) #silentmarchnyc #ChangetheNYPD #abetterNYPD

Twitter - https://twitter.com/#!/OccupyWallStNYC

[dipsydoodle]

14. Charming

That's an English expression for

[ileus]

17. Foot on the throat of the 99%...

[okieinpain]

18. i don't think so. the community needs to form their own watch program

and start keeping tabs on the police. that would go a long way to make sure the stops are conducted with respectful way. the gangsters are hiding behind the working people and will come out just as soon as the police leave.

[EFerrari]

20. There is no respectful way to racially profile people.

If we had a functioning Justice Department, this program would be ended.

[Indi Guy]

32. "There is no respectful way to racially profile people"...

Nor should there be a legal way.

[coalition_unwilling]

21. The NYPD is putting this pig in charge:

NYPD Officer Anthony Bologna, the pig who pepper-sprayed non-violent peaceful Occupy Wall Street protesters

[Indi Guy]

22. Calling cops pigs is not helpful...

...to bringing about needed changes. Tempting as it is when dealing with injustice, how can one expect to change the dialog by invoking the dehumanization of others? Isn't dehumanization exactly what we're against here?

[coalition_unwilling]

23. Who's talking about 'changing the dialog'? I'm talking about pigs

pepper-spraying, assaulting and otherwise abusing peaceful protesters exercising their Constitutional rights. If they don't want to be called 'pigs,' then maybe they should stop defending the property interests of the 1%. Until then, 'pigs' it is.

[Indi Guy]

30. All I'm saying is that...

...fighting dehumanization with dehumanization puts one at the same level as the original perpetrator.