In Their Own Words
Part 5: The biggest gang here in New York City
From Serve and Protect to Patrol and Control
Note: PROP originally published this report in May 2013. It is available in .pdf format from the PROP website. PROP is republishing it here in multiple parts to make its content more widely available and in the hope of spreading its findings and message. This report is even more relevant in light of continued public protests and discourse on biased policing practices in NYC and the United States.
“You want to see police officers and feel safe. But, myself included, and the young men that I work with, we feel threatened by the police. When a group of police officers… I get the same feeling as if a gang was coming down the block. I don’t know what’s going to happen, because of my own past experiences [with cops].” Emanuel Candelario, Bronx youth worker.71
“When I came to this country, when I was 13 years old, we had cops in our community that knew people, interacted with people, got to know the kids. We don’t see that anymore. All we see is cops pushing us against the wall. We’re automatically suspects.” Constance Malcolm, Bronx mother of Ramarley Graham, 18, who the NYPD shot and killed in his home.72
“The police department has become the biggest gang here in New York City.” Rev. Bernard Walker, Bronx father of Jateik Reed, who was beaten by NYPD officers.73
“To me, NYPD is the biggest gang in New York. They’re worse than any gang, ’cause they could get away with stuff. When they’re killing people and they don’t get [any] kind of disciplinary action.” Laverne I.74
“They’re supposed to serve and protect, but all they do is patrol and control. Walking down the street doesn’t make you a criminal.” Eric Togar, Brooklyn resident.75
“I thought the model was ‘to serve and protect.’ For whatever reason, it’s simply not like that. In certain areas of New York, I guess you would say the slum areas, it’s more harassment than it is protection.” Cory Smith, 16-year-old.76
“We don’t feel protected by the police… I think the main job of the police is protecting the community, and what they’re doing is just bullying us.” Angel V.77
“Like I tell them, ‘I’m on your side to make sure there is courtesy, professionalism and respect. Isn’t that what you advertise on the side of your car?’” Joseph “Jazz” Hayden, Harlem resident who documents police-civilian encounters.78
“When I was comin’ up, the police department knew the community. They knew the community. Now they don’t know the community. It’s always a different officer… Every month you see a different officer in our community. And it’s bad, it’s real bad. And you have police officers coming in the community with the wrong type of attitude. Everyone that they see in their eyesight is a criminal.” Rev. Bernard Walker, Bronx father of Jateik Reed, who was beaten by NYPD officers.79
“When I was young I thought cops were cool. They had a respectable and honorable job to keep people safe and fight crime. Now, I think their tactics are unfair and they abuse their authority. The police should consider the consequences of a generation of young people who want nothing to do with them — distrust, alienation and more crime.” Nicholas Peart.80
“To know that there’s cops around, you’re supposed to feel safe. But now when you’re walking to your house, and you’re not looking back behind your back to see if somebody is going to rob or steal from you, you’re looking for a cop. How you live like that?” Angel, 17, plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against NYPD.81
“I said, ‘I know my rights!’ They just threw me up on the wall and searched me.” Emmanuel, 15, who was stopped while skateboarding.82
“These kinds of experiences have made me really distrust the police, in spite of the fact that I try to live my life as a law-abiding citizen.” Bronx resident.83
“These experiences changed the way I felt about the police. After the third incident, I worried when police cars drove by; I was afraid I would be stopped and searched or that something worse would happen.” Nicholas Peart.84
“A male officer should not have a right to touch me in any sort of manner, even if it’s on the outside of my clothing. We’re girls. They are men. And they are cops. It feels like a way for them to exert power over you.” Ashanti Galloway, who has been stopped and frisked by NYPD.85
“People from communities of color don’t see NYPD as being there for them or being there to provide safety or security for them. If anything, they see NYPD in their communities as a form of keeping control in those communities.” Mark K.86
“One police officer grabbed my ass and called me ‘faggot.’ The issue [with stop-and-frisk] is that it’s left up to the police officer’s discretion to choose who to stop… It’s a bullshit policy that allows a police officer to make any type of judgment they want.” Mitchell, gay man who has been stopped and frisked four times.87
“Even when I have tried to exercise the rights I knew I had, there was no way of ensuring they were respected in reality — during one stop, the cop’s only response was to call me a ‘faggot’ while conducting a search over my objection.” Mitchell Mora, Latino youth leader with Streetwise and Safe.88
“Yep, that’s what [the cops] said, ‘You guys are immigrants.’ We can’t say anything to them, They curse at us. They treat us like we killed somebody.” Alex Mejia, 16, describing an incident with NYPD officers.89
“An officer grabbed me, as if I’m a criminal, slammed me up against the mailboxes, and began to ask me if I seen someone run into the building… Because I live in public housing, I’m a criminal?” Tracy, Brooklyn resident who was stopped in her building on the way to church.90
“[The cops] can’t catch the people who are actually doing crimes, committing crimes, but people like me that’s actually trying to make a living — an honest, decent living — are still getting harassed.” Prince.91
“Wherein as parents we were often afraid of kid-on-kid crime, of Black-on-Black crime, now we have to be seriously concerned about Blue-on-Black crime.” Reverend G. Morgan-Thomas, Harlem resident.92
“I understand there’s a lot of crime going around. But being a police officer, you have to have some training to separate regular citizens from criminals.” Shameek Townsend.93
“I think that there’s really deeply entrenched racism in the NYPD. And not only racism, but classist prejudice. So, the way that you see people being treated in low income neighborhoods, that’s not how the NYPD treats people who live in the Upper East Side.” Emanuel Candelario, Bronx youth worker.94
“There [were] days when you’d see all these little kids lined up, with their legs spread, holding [onto] the wall, and the cops are going through their pockets and stuff. It’s just like a terrible, disgusting, horrible thing to see.” Ben F., describing cop presence at a predominantly Arab and Latino middle school.95
“As a whole our community is fed up with the militarized form of policing that we experience. We don’t feel like we live in a neighborhood that’s protected by the police. We feel that we live in an occupied zone patrolled by law enforcement. It’s a very containing feeling. It almost feels like you’re in an outside prison.” Jon T.96
“This is what Harlem has turned into — an open-air prison. You can get stopped for anything.” Joseph “Jazz” Hayden, who documents police-civilian encounters.97
“There’s still issues of race and class that permeate all the relationships that exist in the country, and none more inflammatory than the one between upholders of the law and people of color. It’s really easy for the relationship between police anywhere with anyone and the general public to become one of hate instead of one of understanding.” Franz Jerome, Harlem Resident, Community Activist.98
You can read this report in full, and many others, on PROP’s website.
