{ wear }
{ wear }
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
NYPD Profiling and Targeting LGBTQ People of Color
Here is a vignette from March 2013: A 24-year-old gay man named Yhatzine Lafontain is leaving a restaurant late at night with a friend on Roosevelt Avenue and 95th Street in Queens. Both are dressed as women, Mr. Lafontain in a jacket, short dress and heels. Exchanging goodbyes outside, they are approached by a man who tells them they look good.
In Mr. Lafontain’s account, they chatted briefly to avoid seeming rude and the man departed. Within a few minutes, an undercover police officer approached Mr. Lafontain and his friend and arrested them, suspecting them of prostitution. “We were surprised,” Mr. Lafontain told me, “because we had never talked to anyone about sex or money.”
I met Mr. Lafontain last week in Jackson Heights, not far from where his arrest had taken place, at the offices of Make the Road New York, a community-organizing group that works primarily with Latino immigrants. It has tried, along with various anti-violence projects in the city, to call attention to the perverse specifics of stop-and-frisk policing — a practice currently on trial in federal court in Lower Manhattan — as it applies to gay, lesbian and transgender New Yorkers who are Black and Latino. Last fall, the group issued a report on policing in Jackson Heights, a neighborhood with a vibrant gay and transgender community and attendant club scene (and also a prostitution problem), and found in its survey of more than 300 residents that while 28 percent of straight respondents reported having been stopped by the police, 54 percent of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender respondents reported this kind of treatment.
By the way, I changed the title of the article because I felt that the original title (“Arrests by The Fashion Police”) created by the people at the New York Times was mocking the severity of the issues being discussed in the article.
This is a must read/reblog. Although prostitution is only a misdemeanor in NY, a conviction will result in the victim being kicked off food stamps and subsidized housing.
The NYPD has declared a portion of Flatbush a “Frozen Zone”, meaning media are not allowed in and people can be subjected to arrest for not following police orders. It basically means the area is under temporary martial law. The last times the NYPD declared a Frozen Zone was on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and during the beginning of OWS.
Please call 311 to demand that everyone in connection to tonight’s Kimani vigil/march be released from the 71st precinct in Brooklyn. There’s one Malcolm X Grassroots Movement member arrested & two Justice Committee (JC) members arrested. A ton of community members who were at the vigil/march were also arrested. If you have friends/family in NYC please tell them to call 311. If you live in NYC please call 311. Let’s get them free! Please share!NYPD decided not to release community members and Cop Watchers arrested at the vigil for Kimani “Kiki” Gray. Please call 7182502001 to demand NO charges be brought against all arrested
Image of the Long Range Acoustical Device (LRAD), or sound cannon, being used by the NYPD on November 15, 2011. Occupiers, just so you know what it looks like. It can create sound at a pain threshold for people, and is used for crowd control. It can also cause permanent hearing loss.
Bring gun-range quality earphones to mitigate this.
This is what a police state looks like.
ATTN: ANYONE WHO ATTENDS AN OCCUPY PROTEST IN THE U.S.
Bring gun-range quality earphones and some kind of eye protection. In fact, bring extra pairs for people you befriend or are standing close to. The paid corporate mercenaries are waiting for you, and they do not care who you are.
Evidence suggests that #occupywallstreet updates were being blocked or minimized on Twitter.
Very much worth the read. This should be of great concern, given that the mainstream media have been choosing to ignore the protests so social media are the only outlet for significant dissemination of news.
In related news, Department of Homeland Security has admitted that it is increasing its monitoring of social media sites. Monitoring? Or exerting control over them as well?
NINETEEN-EIGHTY-FOUR WAS NOT AN INSTRUCTION MANUAL
PETITION: Tell President Obama to condemn violent police actions across the United States
Tell Obama to Condemn Police Actions Around the Country
All around the country, police departments are using violence and coercion to rid cities of peaceful protesters who are practicing the very universal rights that you referenced when addressing the protests in Egypt.
“I want to be very clear,” you said back in January, “in calling upon the Egyptian authorities to refrain from any violence against peaceful protestors. The people of Egypt have rights that are universal. That includes the right to peaceful assembly and association, the right to free speech, and the ability to determine their own destiny. These are human rights. And the United States will stand up for them everywhere.”
[Click here to sign the petition now!]
The hypocrisy has got to stop. As a nation that has set out to set the example for the rest of the world in the way it treats its citizens we are drowning in hypocrisy and violations of Constitutional rights. There will always be anomalies during peaceful protests - we’re only human - but it is not the job of sworn peace officers to lash out violently and mercilessly at the very people they took an oath to protect and serve.
When we hear that police officers are only reacting to violence bestowed upon them, we can only look back to to 1962 and former President Kennedy’s words: “Those who make peaceful protest impossible, make violent protest inevitable.” We call upon other nations around the world to stand up for the rights of their people, then let the very atrocities that we are addressing occur to our own citizens.
[Click here to sign the petition now!]
Mr. President, the American People demand that the actions of the police officers around the country are addressed. The American People need to know that their President will not stand for this kind of treatment of his Nation’s citizens, especially since we have fought so long and hard to preserve the very rights that all of these peaceful protests are exercising.
Mr. President, the Police Officers who are documented in photo and video all around the internet need to be called to justice. This is not a nation of extrajudicial punishment, this is a nation of free speech and peaceful assembly and one that is tired of watching its sons and daughters fight and die in far off lands for the very rights that American citizens are having suppressed.
[Click here to sign the petition now!]
This petition only has 415 signatures. Come on, guys! I believe in you!
When the NYPD performed a militarized raid of Zuccotti Park on November 15, 2011, they threw the 5,554 books in the People’s Library (and the tent, donated by author Patti Smith) into a trash compactor. In response to the outrage over the destruction of books, Bloomberg’s office tweeted a disingenuous picture of the books and laptops being “safely stored” at the Department of Sanitation. However, when #OWS librarians arrived with an inventory of the books, they confirmed that most of the books were missing or damaged or soiled beyond use because of the trash compactor.
This is what a police state looks like.
Bloomberg must go.
What the NYPD and Michael Bloomberg think of donated books.
Also bonus, a fabulous video montage of the night/morning around Zuccotti park set to Sinatra’s “New York”. Old blue eyes never sounded so good. The ending with the flag is just perfect and a bit disgusting that it even happened.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhQCpXM-Sm4
I love the fact the film maker who’s office is right down near Zuccotti and where the former WTC use to be makes note of the fact he saw a heavier police presence down there that morning than on 9/11. Why are the powers that be more afraid of the Occupy movement(which was at that specific time just a few hundred people camped out in the park) than they are about fucking Al-Qaeda and colossal terrorist attacks?
Because people are scary when just woken up?
Media Misdirection #19:
It’s worth noting how the New York Daily News cover story suggests that the protester is to blame. Even the wording “OWS clashes with cops …” supports that position.
Instead, as anyone who has seen the video of that incident could attest to, the NYPD were the ones whose actions were violent. They struck the protester with a baton in the face. Then, as they arrested him, they removed his shoes and pants, in full view of the crowds of people. Those images have since gone viral, around the world.
It should come as no coincidence that the reviled Department of Homeland Security is behind the coordinated attacks on the protests across the United States. That agency was started under the Bush regime, the same regime which legalized torture of prisoners and which eroded our civil rights and provided us with the conditions of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.
Why should we be surprised that these same tactics are being used against citizens? And after being lied to for so many years (“Oh, we’re going to war with them because of weapons of mass destruction. What do you mean, they don’t have weapons of mass destruction?”), the media continues to perpetuate its fraud to keep the public from identifying with the protesters. By presenting a warped view of the facts in a way which will alienate the casual reader from the protesters, it is a blatant attempt to keep the protests from gaining more support.
This is what a police state looks like.
Olbermann Interviews Dorli Rainey 84 Year Old Pepper Sprayed By Seattle Cops
“[Pepper spray] is not age specific. No more dangerous to someone who is ten or someone who is eighty.” -Jeff Kappel, Seattle Police Spokesman; 16 November 2011.
Oh. Well then. If that’s the case, I suppose we should pepper-spray ten-year-old children next.
(Source: youtube.com)
Operation Destroy Occupy, It’s Making the Bosses Nervous, by Taylor Marsh
WASHINGTON – The CBS report says it all, no hedging: part of a day of mass gatherings in response to efforts to break up Occupy Wall Street camps nationwide. At two months, that’swhere Occupy stands, with political and corporate establishment forces utilizing law enforcement at all levels to stop the movement.
Occupy protests across the country are being targeted, because they threaten the two establishment parties and the businesses that back our corporate political system. It all sounds so cartoonish when bluntly written. However, the dire economic situation people are facing today has torn the private American discontent away from the silent suffering, giving a voice to the 99%.
Occupy Wall Street people understand that not only are more difficult times possibly around the corner, they know that the current government will likely do as it has historically done, which is to protect the rich and powerful at the expense of the long term interests of the middle class. Some of the most financially successful people in America continually remind us all that capitalism is a contest. There are winners and losers. And the winners want to enjoy their success and they want the losers to keep it down. The noise of the vanquished is spoiling the victors’ fun. – Alec Baldwinz
The controversy over the protests is starting to drown out the actual message.
The ground has been laid for Occupy protests to get very bad PR. Public Policy Polling now reveals it in “Occupy Wall Street Favor Fading.”
Democratic and Republican lawmakers, fueled and backed by big and small business, putting pressure on mayors and other elected officials, as everyone looks at the holiday shopping season, means more pressure to discredit the Occupy protesters, as the 99% look on believing in the core principles that continue to bring people out into the cold.
You can blast negative images, as cable yakkers rant about the rabble, but the core message of Occupy resounds.
Sean Hannity on his radio show yesterday actually said one goal of Occupy Wall Street protesters was to destroy Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and ruin it for families. The hyperbole on wingnut radio has gone nuclear. That’s because the 1% Rush and Sean represent know that if Occupy continues to take hold Republicans have more to lose than Democrats, even if both parties are to blame for our current economic plight.
Police in riot gear, while protesters mark two months, send a frightening message, but then it’s been planned that way. Can’t have democracy breaking out in America over something as silly as income inequality, now can we?
The establishment business class is doing their best to help.
But it’s this report earlier this week by Rick Ellis in the Examiner out of Wisconsin that is getting deserved attention, because it points to the escalations we’re seeing.
‘Occupy’ crackdowns coordinated with federal law enforcement officials
Over the past ten days, more than a dozen cities have moved to evict “Occupy” protesters from city parks and other public spaces. As was the case in last night’s move in New York City, each of the police actions shares a number of characteristics. And according to one Justice official, each of those actions was coordinated with help fromHomeland Security, the FBI and other federal police agencies.
The official, who spoke on background to me late Monday evening, said that while local police agencies had received tactical and planning advice from national agencies, the ultimate decision on how each jurisdiction handles the Occupy protests ultimately rests with local law enforcement.
Scary pictures and videos on TV going out to middle America, along with right-wing radio blasting the dangers of Occupy protesters, all of this is how a movement is discredited.
What’s the dangers to people if peaceful protests were allowed to continue without interruption, as is their right?
The fear is to businesses impacted by Occupy protesters presence wherever they rise up, as well as the message that continues to build, which threatens politicians not able to help their corporate sponsors. That freaks the establishment, with the loss of business revenue enough to inspire engagement by the federal government and Homeland Security to become involved in helping locally.
Our democratic republic isn’t what it used to be.
