As Mayor de Blasio faces fallout from relentless NYPD brutality, the mayor's standing with minority communities is on shaky ground

PUBLISHED : FRI, 08 AUG 2014, 04:41 PM
UPDATED : SAT, 09 AUG 2014, 02:02 PM

Will GOTV gimmicks from 2013 election come back to haunt Mayor de Blasio ?

Minority support for de Blasio is tenuous, at best, because of the political machinations used to win over the Black vote in last year's mayoral election. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is reportedly fuming that the Rev. Al Sharpton voiced sharp criticisms of the NYPD at the mayor's round table discussion, which was staged last week, The New York Post reported today. City Hall insiders, grappling with growing minority discontent and criticisms of the mayor over the homicide of Eric Garner at the hands of NYPD officers, are trying to insulate the mayor from minority unrest about the relentless instances of NYPD brutality and the police department's record of intentionally targeting and discriminating against low-income and minority communities. Two months ago, the last Quinnipiac University Poll revealed that the mayor had lost support amongst White voters and that his sole base of support remained amongst minority voters. Political bloggers have since been predicting that the mayor's regressive appointment of William Bratton as police commissioner, the mayor's embrace of Commissioner Bratton's discriminatory Broken Windows theory of policing, the militarized raids of public housing developments, the endless and sometimes violent police arrests that target people of color seeking public accommodation aboard mass transit, the summer policing offensive ordered by Commissioner Bratton, and recent examples of police brutality, including the choking homicide of Mr. Garner, would cost the mayor popularity amongst minority voters. This appears to be coming true. That Rev. Sharpton has moved from an obedient supporter of City Hall machinations to squash minority discontent to becoming a vocal critic of the de Blasio administration's handling of the community anger arising from the long, over-due overhaul of the NYPD, shows that even some of the mayor's most visible "Yes Men" may be distancing themselves from the mayor. It's been reported that the mayor wants to take a centrist approach to policing that still defends aspects of the NYPD's tactics that voters find brutal and discriminatory, a tortured position that critics believe is the mayor's payback to wealth real estate developers, who view Broken Windows policing as a key driver of gentrification. For the mayor, the political ramifications of fraying minority relations are fraught with consequences. If he loses support amongst minority voters, some political bloggers believe that he will become a lame duck, one-term mayor. Mayor de Blasio has been caught unawares, because the mayor, advised by a team of tone-deaf lobbyists and political campaign consultants, were operating under the misconception that they had already instructed the city's minority leaders to toe the party line following the election of the city's first Democratic mayor in 20 years. For instance, when then mayor-elect de Blasio first announced his appointment of Mr. Bratton as police commissioner, the mayor's team of lobbyists worked behind the scenes to strong-arm many of the city's minority leaders to issue to journalists statements approving of Mr. Bratton's appointment as police commissioner in a manipulative, preemptive move to prevent any criticisms of the thin-skinned mayor-elect. The mayor and his advisors were nervous that Mr. Bratton's embrace of the discriminatory Broken Windows approach to policing and past scandals of police brutality would become a source of division, which the mayor's advisors largely succeeded in neutralizing, except for ongoing protests by police reform activists affiliated with the protest group, New Yorkers Against Bratton, which the mayor's operatives have been downplaying -- until the NYPD killing of Mr. Garner opened the public eyes to what New Yorkers Against Bratton had been saying all along : that the mayor was not fully committed to overhauling the NYPD. But manipulating minority leaders into supporting the Bratton appointment wasn't the first time when the mayor and his advisors twisted race issues to his advantage. Let's look back to how race was a factor in the mayor's election. Mayor de Blasio's police relations round table was limited to only Whites and Blacks. You may not like the reason why : Blacks played an outsized role in the mayor's campaign win. Political power brokers generally predict spikes in the the percentage of Black voter turn out if enough Black candidates run for office in contested races, creating an advantage for Black-favored candidates. In the last municipal election, the lawyer Ken Thompson, a close friend of Mayor de Blasio, waged a political campaign to unseat Charles Hynes as the Brooklyn District Attorney. Despite Mr. Thompson’s denials, it was widely reported that Mr. Thompson’s campaign was advised by former Brooklyn Democratic Party chair Clarence Norman, with Masa Moore in some other role, meaning that old-line Brooklyn Black leaders were siding with Mr. Thompson's insurgent candidacy to unseat D.A. Hynes. To help Mr. Thompson win, Mr. de Blasio campaigned for him, and Mr. Thompson had the endorsement of the Working Families Party. As a result of the allegations of prosecutorial misconduct in the Brooklyn District Attorney's office and D.A. Hynes' reputation for refusing to challenge NYPD cases based on the unconstitutional tactic of stop-and-frisk, D.A. Hynes was seen as vulnerable to minority voters. In New York City, the two power centers of Black voting power are Harlem and Central Brooklyn. Whilst Mr. Thompson, Mr. Norman, and Mr. Moore were energizing Black voters to turn out to defeat D.A. Hynes, a potential existed to inflate the pool of minority voters for the primary election, an opportunity that could be exploited by the de Blasio campaign if his advisors could find a way harness a larger minority vote turn-out to his advantage. Meanwhile, D.A. Hynes was relying on campaign support from Scott Levenson, George Arzt, and Mortimer Matz. One of those advisors, Mr. Levenson, became involved in a conflict of interest during last year's election when it was reported that the lobbying and campaign consulting firm he heads, The Advance Group, was paid to manage Yetta Kurland’s City Council campaign during the same election cycle when The Advance Group was paid to help Corey Johnson, who was Ms. Kurland’s opponent in her City Council race. In last year’s elections, The Advance Group also worked to defeat several LGBT City Council candidates as a backroom favor, the details of which remain undisclosed, to an unnamed political operative to benefit City Action Coalition PAC, a controversial political action committee dedicated to right-wing causes, such as "traditional marriage." The Advance Group gave conflicting statements about the nature of the favor it was doing for the unnamed operative connected to City Action Coalition PAC, first describing the work as a "favor" and then describing its decision as one made in the "heat of the moment," adding that the firm hadn't performed its "due diligence." The New York Times noted that the normally left-leaning firm, The Advance Group, represented candidates "backed by the Real Estate Board of New York and candidates vigorously attacking that board" in last year's election cycle. Although D.A. Hynes had earned the ire of minorities, he was relying upon Mr. Levenson's unprincipled firm as one of the three underpinnings key to his reelection. Mr. Levenson, a longtime advisor to some of the founding leaders and institutions of the Working Families Party, overlaps with Mayor de Blasio's political background, since some of the founders of the Working Families Party have been described to be operatives and organizations with close ties to the mayor. Mr. Levenson's left-leaning bona fides were all the more incongruent with his firm's representation of D.A. Hynes, since the other key advisor to D.A. Hynes’ reelection campaign was Mr. Arzt, an establishment campaign manager, who is more politically aligned with mainstream Democrats, who can be described as old-guard, whereas Mr. Levenon saw himself as more supportive of "insurgent candidates." Why would the more radical Mr. Levenson work with old, stodgy Mr. Arzt on D.A. Hynes’ troubled reelection race ? Mr. Levenson, with his close ties to the Working Families Party, was advising Mr. Hynes, even though Mr. Hynes’ opponent, Mr. Thompson, had been endorsed by the Working Families Party, another shady arrangement. In order for Mr. de Blasio to win last year’s mayoral election and prevent a costly and bruising primary-run off election against his rival, Bill Thompson, Mr. de Blasio needed to win the Black vote, and he needed for political operatives loyal to him to take down the campaign of his chief political rival, former Council Speaker Quinn. Separate from The Advance Group's controversial involvement in the take-down of former Speaker Quinn's mayoral campaign, the role of The Advance Group in race politics cannot go unexamined. The winner in the Brooklyn District Attorney race was going to depend on Black voter turn-out, predicted The New York Times. A large turn-out of Black voters, needed by Mr. Thompson, the Brooklyn District Attorney candidate, could conceivably have a positive spill-over effect for Mr. de Blasio’s mayoral campaign, given the close associations the two political races shared. For Mr. Thompson to win, Mr. Hynes' reelection campaign had to be taken down. In the end, the advise and counsel of three seasoned political consultants failed D.A. Hynes. Against this backdrop, Mayor de Blasio released the political campaign commercial featuring his bi-racial son, Dante de Blasio. The warm and fuzzy campaign commercial resonated with voters, who were looking to turn the page on, I hate to say it, a rich White billionaire, who reprimanded New Yorkers like a nagging nanny. However, the younger Mr. de Blasio's campaign commercial did more for his father : it was created to inspire Black voters to see Mr. de Blasio as one of them, setting the stage for a crafted perception of Mr. de Blasio as having sensibilities of what the minority experience was like in New York precisely because his own wife and children were minorities. This perception would only hold together, though, so long as the machinations that created this perception could hold together. Mayor de Blasio's support amongst minority voters, critical to his defeat of Bill Thompson in the primary, was made possible by so much background work that Mr. Thompson, the mayoral candidate, was unable to break a tie with Mr. de Blasio in respect of Black voters, according to exit polling results reported by The New York Daily News. During an election when the LGBT community rejected identity politics and voted former Speaker Quinn out of office, Mr. de Blasio was engaged in a war to tug the identity politics strings of Black voters. Some of the background political operative machinations that helped the de Blasio campaign win the mayorship included having the support of Rev. Sharpton. As was revealed this week, Rev. Sharpton said that he and his supporters “won the election.” Although the Rev. Sharpton framed the win in terms of having brought racial issues, such as the demand to end the police tactic of stop-and-frisk, to the fore, political bloggers could not overlook the fact that the Rev. Sharpton also failed to make an endorsement in last year's mayor's race, a crucial decision that may have cost Mr. Thompson, the mayoral candidate, the race. Returning to the present, this revelation could have only been made possible, because of growing minority discontent over police relations with minority communities in the wake of Mr. Garner's choking death. As the minority community looks to its duplicitous leaders to press the de Blasio administration for an overhaul of the NYPD, as the Rev. Sharpton comes under blowback criticisms from police unions, and as the de Blasio administration contorts itself to continue support of the discriminatory Broken Windows approach to policing, the system is turning on itself in search of a resolution. Only when the system turns on itself can the public expect the press to finally pull back the curtain on the corrupt backroom machinations that drive how politicians manage our government -- and on how complex elections are actually won. Mayor de Blasio's support amongst the minority community was built upon a foundation of a campaign commercial, which political bloggers across the city believe was tested before focus-groups to craft the most politically-appealing message. Behind the scenes, political operatives loyal to the mayor were counting on each of Mr. Thompson, the Brooklyn District Attorney candidate, to create a spike in Black voters in Central Brooklyn and on the Rev. Sharpton to withhold any endorsement in the mayor's race, striking a blow to the hopes of Mr. Thompson, the mayoral candidate, of receiving the positive impact of the Reverend's endorsement. As the mayor wades through the fallout of relentless NYPD controversies, which the public rightly sees to be race- and income-based, the campaign machinations may give way to a new set of perceptions that the public form of their own accord, meaning that viral social media videos of NYPD brutality and murder will supplant slick campaign commercials in shaping public opinion. If the mayor really cared about resetting his own minority relations, much less the community relations between minority groups and the police department, he'd end the discriminatory Broken Windows approach to policing, he's replace Mr. Bratton with a police commissioner with real credibility with the minority community, he'd support a federal prosecutor to investigate the homicide of Mr. Garner, and he'd institute the long, overdue police reform recommendations of such esteemed civic reform leaders as Margaret Fung, Michael Meyers, and Norman Siegel, including the call to invite all minorities in the broader conversation about police reform -- as a start.

RELATED Rev. Sharpton Says He’s Earned Right To Advise On Police Policy (CBS 2 New York) A mayoral summit in black and white : Learn from past efforts to improve cop-community relations (The New York Daily News) Mayor de Blasio furious that the Rev. Al Sharpton showed him up at City Hall (The New York Post) To unite communities ravaged by NYPD brutality, mayor turns to anti-choice, anti-marriage equality bigot (The New York Times) Michael Hayes, LMT, has practiced massage for more than 20 years as a licensed massage therapist in New York City. Flatiron Massage operates its massage studio in the Flatiron District of New York City.

The neoconservative and neoliberal Democrats corrupting NY's political left

"Both parties are fueled by rich people’s money."

The big money machine backing the Democratic Party wants Hillary Clinton to become the party's nominee for president, so that Hillary's big money supporters can keep control over her politics, as has been the case for decades. But she's not alone amongst the Democratic Party's dynastic marionettes, whose strings roll up into the hands of some of the same big money and corporate puppet masters that guide Republican politics. Parallels between Gov. Cuomo's cover-up of the Moreland Commission scandal and former President Nixon's cover-up of his Watergate scandal Government reform activists in post-Occupy New York City are energized at the prospect of a Wall Street puppet Democrat, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, joining former New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn by being removed from office. Gov. Cuomo faces an escalating federal investigation into actions by the governor's office over the closure of a corruption-fighting investigation panel known as the Moreland Commission. Last year, former Speaker Quinn was voted out of office in the Democratic primary in the race for New York City mayor. Differentiating between the two, Gov. Cuomo faces a Watergate-like corruption investigation that could lead to the governor to negotiate a non-prosecution agreement, which will allow him to resign before the end of his term, some activists speculate, whereas the defeat of former Speaker Quinn's mayoral campaign was aided by a controversial Super PAC with reported close ties to Mayor de Blasio and his supporters, itself the target of a possible federal investigation. As federal prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's Office from New York's southern district delve deeper into the Cuomo administration's political machinations that were responsible for political corruption across New York State government, advocates for overhauling the broken political system wonder why is it so hard to muster public outrage for the lack of corruption prosecution on the local and state levels when local and state prosecutors seem to be inundated with the enforcement of minor infractions, like selling loose, untaxed cigarettes or dancing in the New York City's subways. While very low-level infractions and misdemeanors are met with over-policing, the law enforcement in the city and state levels overlook each of the apparent pay-to-play machinations in the Gov. Cuomo's massive fundraising operations that accepts donations from real estate developers seeking the governor's approval on multi-million tax breaks and the conflicts of interests in Mayor Bill de Blasio's fundraising for his nonprofit political arm from sources seeking to do business with New York City. The answer for the dichotomy comes from the fact that local and state prosecutors, Democrats in the cases of Attorney General Schneiderman and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, avoid prosecuting political corruption cases, many good government reform activists believe, because cases consisting of violations of local or state law that involve the prosecution of elected officials or their political operatives pose special problems for local and state prosecutors, a fact known to federal prosecutors, because this complication actually falls under the discretion of federal prosecutors considering racketeering charges against corrupt political organizations, according to the federal criminal RICO prosecutors' manual. The special problems facing local and state prosecutors stems from the political reality that prosecutors, who run for public office, must do so with the consent and support of county Democratic Party chairs. The required approval of the Democratic Party machine acts as a backdoor deterrent on the prosecution of government corruption cases, because local and state prosecutors have to be mindful not to investigate corrupt officials, political operatives, and lobbyists, who are loyal to the county chairs, whose support are needed by prosecutors. Besides DA Vance, the deterrent of investigating government and campaign corruption has also been documented in the office of Erie County District Attorney Frank Sedita. Complicating matters is that prosecutors running for public office must fundraise from the same Wall Street and real estate donor base that wants to have a say in government policy, especially when it applies to the prosecution of business or government corruption. The state attorney general, for example, raises huge amounts of money from a real estate developer, who is represented in the leadership of the controversial real estate lobbying group, the Real Estate Board of New York, which became embroiled in the Moreland Commission scandal. In spite of federal prosecutorial discretion, local and state political corruption backed by big business donors has generally gone unchecked, whilst low-level misdemeanors and infractions by low-income people and people of color are over-policed and subject to police brutality. The death of Eric Garner has brought to the fore a fundamental contradiction in Mayor de Blasio's progressive façade : the Broken Windows theory of policing has, at its roots, a neoconservative aim to oppress the poor and people of color. The governor allows real estate developers to make large campaign contributions, which then therefore sets property tax rates for billion-dollar luxury condominium towers. This is no different than how the mayor allows real estate developers to insist on a "Broken Windows" approach to policing, which unfairly targets the poor and people of color. Lowering property taxes for the rich and over-policing low-income and minority communities to drive mass displacement and gentrification are the goals of wealthy real esate developers. These are Republican values. As the apparent big business corruption runs rampant across New York State, it's the little people, who pay with their lives. Former First Lady Mrs. Clinton, Gov. Cuomo, and Mayor de Blasio go on serving their big business donors, whilst police brutality, and even the imposition of a death sentence before apparently a suspect's Miranda rights can be read, are leading many government reform activists to question the priorities of New York's Democratic leaders. Are they just Republicans in Democrats' clothing ? Why are leaders of the Democratic Party silent about the miscarriage of justice that is readily apparent to voters ? And why do voters accept the failure of the Democratic Party to fully address the broken judicial system ? From unfounded screeds written by Maggie Haberman, voters are left to read between the lines or to triangulate back to other journalism, to see for themselves how the ethic of public service has nothing to do with how the Democratic Party approaches government. Left unexamined is whether the political organizing now taking place in anticipation of Gov. Cuomo's resignation will yield to installation of another politician from the corporate-owned two-party system, or whether government reform activists are going to push back against the co-opting political machinations that led to backroom Super PAC's, corrupt lobbyists, and astroturf groups from driving this year's election outcome for governor, as was the case in last year's election of the mayor. Which begs the age-old question : why do activists from the political left still organize with the Democratic Party ?

RELATED Is Hillary Clinton the true heir of Ronald Reagan ? (Salon) A lesson of Watergate, 40 years on, for Andrew Cuomo (The Times Union) The Neoconservative Roots of the Broken Windows Theory (The Gotham Gazette)

Quinnipiac University Poll, meet summer NYPD offensive and ''broken windows policing''

Mayor de Blasio's high poll approval ratings from minority communities will soon clash with the summer police offensive by controversial NYPD Commissioner William Bratton that targets communities of color.

RELATED William Bratton Putting Desk Officers on Streets in Neighborhoods of Color to Aggravate Tensions in Communities During Hot Summer Months (The New York Times) A Tale of Two Cities : Racial Divide Over Bill de Blasio’s Support Widens : Political Poll shows Black voters support for mayor, for now (The New York Observer)

In last month's Quinnipiac University Poll, it was affirmed that Mayor de Blasio had lost support amongst a majority of White voters. How long will the mayor enjoy support from people of color as Commish Bratton releases the Kracken upon minority neighborhoods and the city's public housing developments ? According to a Quinnipiac University Poll release in June, Mayor Bill de Blasio had lost support amongst White voters, but he still has the support of some minority groups. How long that support will last under the racist ''broken windows policing'' policies of NYPD Commissioner William Bratton will soon be revealed. Commissioner Bratton is unleashing approximately 400 desk cops onto the city's "troubled police precincts" -- a euphemism for public housing developments and other minority neighborhoods -- in a policing crackdown that appears to be discriminatory based on income and race. The new NYPD offensive, known in the department as “Summer All Out,” will last 90 days, and it follows the controversial, military-like "shock and awe" raids conducted at dawn one day several weeks ago targeting low-income residents, who live in public housing developments in Harlem. Mayor de Blasio, Commissioner Bratton, and their public relations advisors, such as Dan Levitan, left, from the corrupt lobbying firm Berlin Rosen, are tone deaf to the concerns of minority communities. During the Harlem public housing raids, the police mobilized helicopters, officers in riot gear, and even counterterrorism officials, and the cops even hauled out all of their expensive police toys that they use to make themselves feel so strong and powerful, and, instead of targeting the suspects of interest, the police under Commissioner Bratton drew the entire residents of the public housing complexes of the General Ulysses S. Grant Houses and the Manhattanville Houses in Harlem into the dawn raid. It's clear that the intent of the NYPD was to instill fear and terror into the residents, to make the major psychological impression that to round up suspects of interest the police will raid entire public housing developments using "militaristic invasions" to make communities of color more submissive to police in a perverse form of sociological behavior modification. This was what the U.S. military meant by using "shock and awe" under former President George W. Bush in the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003. But the implications for Mayor de Blasio may be the same as they were for former President Bush. U.S. popularity plummeted when we are seen as the aggressor. As more and more voters become disenchanted with the duplicitous political machinations of Mayor de Blasio (witness the collapse of Long Island College Hospital on Mayor de Blasio's watch and the swift community sense of betrayal and anger that that engendered), and you have a open window into what the mayor will likely soon face, as the residents of low-income and minority neighborhoods have to put up with aggressive policing that targets the poor and people of color. The mayor's last vestiges of political polling support amongst minorities will likely collapse before this summer is over. Already, the police are targeting low-income artists and performers, who put on shows in the subway system for tips. The unemployment rate for minority youths is stubbornley high, and the mayor has no alternative plan to give subway artists a legal and meaningful way to earn a living. These, and other violations of minority New Yorkers' civil rights, such as the right to be publicly accommodated on buses without fear of being brutalized or discriminated, are driving minority leaders and activists to question Mayor de Blasio's unbridled support for Commissioner Bratton's racist ''broken windows'' theory of policing. And if Interfaith Medical Center in Brooklyn closes this year, the political perceptions of more and more minority communities will turn decidedly anti-de Blasio. Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a legislative landmark that was meant to address the violent discrimination in the South. Perhaps the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice needs to look into the actions of the North, starting right here, with the NYPD. Commissioner Bratton's "broken widows" theory of policing is a form of de jure discrimination, and it must be dismantled. It can be done through the work of the Justice Department, or voters can vote Mayor de Blasio out of office after one term, after he loses critical voting support amongst minority voters as early as this summer, at the rate that he and his police commissioner are going.

This week in the CPR veal pen

PUBLISHED : THURS, 05 JUN 2014, 05:21 PM
UPDATED : THURS, 05 JUN 2014, 11:13 PM

A reporter from The New York Times apparently was embedded with NYPD for a military style raid in some Harlem public housing projects, resulting in biased reporting that was pro-police invasions, similar to when The NYTimes sexed up its reporting by printing propaganda to sell the public on the U.S invasion of Iraq.

Commissioner Bratton is exploiting The NYTimes' weakness for shock and awe, showing us once again that the Gray Lady apparently learned nothing of its Iraq War reporting prejudices.

Selling military style police invasions like war games

RELATED A report back on activists, who expose and overcome the corrupt nonprofit industrial complex, puppet politicans, and veal pen bouncers (NYC : News & Analysis)

IN THE LAST FEW WEEKS, the New York Police Department have begun raiding homeless shelters to arrest poor people on outstanding warrants (whose only crimes are, basically, being poor), and police have begun invading public housing projects in military style to round up youngsters allegedly involved in gangs on the basis of flimsy evidence. Many professional, nonprofit organizations that lobby for police reform issued statements to denounce the police actions. "This incident goes against what this administration stands for," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, referring to Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration, "and is going to drive people out of homeless shelters." But these profession, nonprofit organizations are nothing but talk these days. Grassroots advocates for wholesale law enforcement reforms are not as restrained as the professional, nonprofit organizations. Last week, some of these advocates attended a meeting, where advocates discussed issues that are blocking professional, nonprofit organizations from resuming the direct action, pressure politics campaign for reforms that were beginning to produce some results in the final year of former Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration. A large coalition of professional, nonprofit organizations is called Communities United for Police Reform, or CPR. These organizations are either administered by operatives loyal to the Democratic Party, or else they are funded by deep pocket donors, who are loyal to the Democratic Party. These close political ties prevent these professional, nonprofit organizations from making Mayor de Blasio look like he is betraying his many campaign promises to reform the NYPD, as these militaristic police actions most certainly confirm. One way many grassroots activists have, to determine how the CPR member organizations are committed to reforms, is by gauging CPR's actions. Are CPR's actions consistent with the intentions of the movement to reform the NYPD ? Right now, CPR is just talk and no action. Of special consternation to some law enforcement reform advocates is the apparent silence of Picture the Homeless, one of CPR's member organizations. As people in homeless shelters are being rounded up and arrested, Picture the Homeless is not calling on help from other CPR member organizations to protest the de Blasio administration's policy decision to shock shelter residents in the middle of the night, forcing them to uncomfortably witness the shackling and arresting of fellow shelter residents under such jarring conditions. Protests by the CPR member organizations against brutal and unconstitutional police tactics peaked on Father’s Day in 2012, when a silent march from Harlem to Mayor Bloomberg’s mansion drew tens of thousands of protesters. Right now, one group visibly pressing for aggressive reforms is New Yorkers Against Bratton. As Commissioner William Bratton continues to stir controversy with the police department's use of aggressive, brutal, and often unconstitutional tactics, more and more New Yorkers are going to plainly see that the CPR member organizations are not committed to reforms, because they are unwilling to back up their talk with action. While the NYPD raids homeless shelters and public projects with no visible protestations from CPR member organizations and while the media play up the dramatic military style use of helicopters and battalions of cops in dawn surprise attacks, another high-profile police reform group, the Police Reform Organizing Project, or PROP, is organizing an art exhibit next week. The NYPD's "Broken Windows Policing" escalates into "Preventative Policing" ? As if all of this just wasn't enough, the NYPD has announced a new program with Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance, whereby the police department has entered into a "close collaboration" with prosecutors, sharing electronic surveillance information between prosecutors and police officers on people, who have committed no crime, but who are targets of prejudice for possible suspicion. It's like straight out of Minority Report, where people are arrested by law enforcement for having committed no crimes, yet. The kind of "preventative policing" that NYPD and Manhattan prosecutors envision is an escalation of "broken windows policing," where people are arrested for minor crimes before they theoretically commit bigger crimes. This obsession with preventative and broken windows policing will flood the justice system with many people being tried for minor infractions or no infractions, but these discriminatory approaches to justice will not allow prosecutors to focus on complex public, corporate, and campaign corruption cases -- an imbalance in the prosecution of crimes that lead many law enforcement reform advocates to describe a legal system that treats petty criminals worse than white collar criminals. Indeed, a glaring example of this tale of two justice systems is the police department's military style invasion of Harlem public housing projects for the arrest of alleged young gang members during the same week when former Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes remains free with no imminent threat of arrest for having used the money proceeds of drug deals to pay for his campaign consultant.

VOCAL-NY expects Bratton to support marijuana legalization, even though mayor blocks it

The Twilight Zone that is the Veal Pen

Member groups of CPR use tortured logic, such as expecting NYPD Police Commissioner Bill Bratton to support marijuana legalization now that Gov1% Andrew Cuomo made a campaign promise he doesn't intend to deliver, all in an effort to ignore any criticism of Mayor1% Mayor Bill de Blasio, who last week opposed the drug law reform.

Mayor Bill de Blasio broke a campaign promise by announcing he no longer supported marijuana legalization, contrary to his pledges last year, and now the many community groups, which have become the targets of criticisms for failing to hold the de Blasio administration accountable to other campaign promises to overhaul the scandal-ridden police department, find themselves going to great lengths to avoid any criticism of the mayor, even though the mayor is most responsible for updating laws that govern law enforcement in New York City. The backpedaling community groups are members of an umbrella coalition called Communities United for Police Reform, or CPR, and the groups are mimicking the mayor's own backpedalling, leading some political observers to note that the mayor had installed the lobbying firm of Berlin Rosen to supervise external communications of these community groups, in order to keep these community groups in check. Berlin Rosen has been being paid simultaneously to do the political and lobbying work for the mayor.

One CPR member community group, VOCAL-NY, is seizing on the fact that the Working Families Party has extorted a worthless campaign promise from Gov. Andrew Cuomo to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana, as a way to increase public pressure on NYPD Police Commissioner William Bratton so that he can begin to support marijuana legalization. What does Gov. Cuomo have to do with how Commissioner Bratton runs the NYPD ? Nothing. What does Gov. Cuomo's empty and meaningless campaign promises to the WFP have to do with the racial bias in NYPD drug arrests ? Nothing. Maybe VOCAL-NY should pressure the WFP to hold Mayor de Blasio accountable for his own now worthless campaign promise to legalize marijuana. The mayor runs the NYPD, not the governor.

Will Bratton evolve now that Cuomo pledged marijuana decriminalization to WFP in de Blasio brokered deal? http://t.co/NPDl3dWGdx @BrentNYT

— VOCAL-NY (@VOCALNewYork) June 1, 2014

Mayor @BilldeBlasio does not support legalizing marijuana, despite campaign promise. http://t.co/McsnnRzuGK

— de Blasio Sold Out (@deBlasioSoldOut) May 30, 2014

DeBlasio & Bratton Increasing Marijuana Arrests In NYC http://t.co/hJ2BsgY7oV via @PopResistance

— jess cochrane (@jkcochrane) June 1, 2014

Are you just going to keep watching NYPD police brutality videos online ?

How Can NYC Police Reform Activists Break Free From The Veal Pen ?

In February, NYPD officers used unnecessary and brutal force to detain and arrest an innocent man after he deboarded the Bx12 bus. The New York Daily News wrote a widely cited article about the police department's over-use of force in that incident. In a viral video of the attack, the innocent man screamed for help, asking of bystanders, "Are you just going to watch this sh-t ?"

Police commissioner William Bratton enforces a "broken windows" theory of policing that deliberately targets the poor, people of color, and other minorities for harassment. If the NYPD is left unreformed, then its foreseeable pattern will be more incidents of brutality. And the inevitable question we will all face each time that more and more of these incidents are recorded and posted online will be, "Are we just going to watch these videos -- and do nothing else ?"

In an excerpt of the video of the attack, we ask you this very question :

Join us for a police reform workshop at this year's Left Forum, where we will engage in activities to prompt community groups to renew their calls for reform. To attend the workshop, you need to register to attend the Left Forum ; after that, you can attend other workshops or panels, as well.

ATTEND OUR WORKSHOP : How can NYC police reform activists break free from the "veal pen" ?

Date : Saturday, May 31, 2014

Time : 3:20 p.m. - 4:50 p.m.

Place : 524 West 59th Street, Manhattan -- Session 3, Room 1.92

Join us for an intensive workshop designed to challenge groups and activists, who have voluntarily de-escalated political pressure for police reform by climbing into the "veal pen" following the election of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. Registration is required to attend the Left Forum. REGISTER HERE NOW

veal pen \ vēl pɛn \ noun a holding cell, where young cattle and activists are restrained to keep their bodies tender, until all of their strengths atrophy in preparation for being butchered by the system.

If you want to take part in the conversation to free activists and community groups from the "veal pen," please join us for this important workshop.

2014-05-29 Veal Pen Police Reform Workshop - Movement Action Planning - Flyer (Final) by VealPen2014

A decade later, the New York City Council is still going through the motions on activists' Constitutional rights

Councilmember Ydanis Rodriquez promised to question the District Attorneys of New York about the prosecutorial crackdown against activists. Why doesn't he ask them about complying with the twin City Council resolutions from 2004 ?

What about follow-up of two past @NYCCouncil resolutions ? 1st : http://t.co/rvCWbPQYNy 2nd : http://t.co/lP3JsufWx1 @ydanis

— Louis Flores (@maslowsneeds) May 20, 2014

Before a joint hearing of the the New York City Council Public Safety and Finance committees met to discuss a proposed expansion of the NYPD force by 1,000 new officers, Councilmember Ydanis Rodriguez tweeted that he would promise to call on the district attorneys of New York City to account for the prosecution of protesters. Councilmember Rodriguez, who was arrested when police raided the Occupy Wall Street encampment in 2011, is upset with law enforcement's focus on arresting protesters, like himself and Cecily McMillan, even though such arrests -- and their subsequent prosecution -- violate the peaceful political activities of protesters, acts which are protected by guarantees under the Bill of Rights.

When The New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin wrote about Councilmember Rodriguez's complaints, Mr. Goodwin blamed law enforcement reform advocates for demonising the New York Police Department, but Mr. Goodwin failed to see how, left unchecked, the NYPD's pattern of misconduct and brutality leads to the police department's ruination of its own reputation. Reasonable people can see how the NYPD has had a long history of controversies and scandals, when it comes to failing to respect citizens' First Amendment rights to free speech and assembly. Police have gone so far as to make arrests of activists without probable cause, violating activists' Fourth Amendment rights. Police have also violated due process by denying activists' rights to parade permits and other approvals to facilitate peaceful political demonstrations. Based on the extreme abuses by the NYPD, the New York City Council passed a decade ago two resolutions, affirming activists' constitutional rights to peacefully demonstrate without fear of reprisal, arrest, or vindictive prosecution for expressing their political beliefs. These resolutions were enacted following controversies in police tactics following the large anti-war rally of February 15, 2003, but apparently nothing's changed since this, since the police continue to unlawfully target activists for arrest, and prosecutors unlawfully target activists for prosecution.

Councilmember Rodriguez has a checkered record for law enforcement reform. He talks the talk, but when reform activists objected to Mayor Bill de Blasio's appointment of William "broken windows theory" Bratton as police commissioner, Councilmember Rodriguez defended Commissioner Bratton. It's unclear from press reports if Councilmember Rodriquez questioned the city's district attorneys at yesterday's joint hearing about the pattern of oppressive prosecution of activists. Nevertheless, it bears repeating that the district attorneys are answerable to the pressures of their political supporters. But at the very least, the district attorneys should take guidance from the twin City Council resolutions enacted ten years ago.

Locally, it is supposed to be the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, who is supposed to oversee the prosecution of crimes. Instead of focusing on major political and corporate corruption cases, which he rarely appears to prosecute, D.A. Vance rather chooses to obsess with the peaceful political activities of activists. D.A. Vance works for the New York State attorney general, Eric Schneiderman. Both D.A. Vance and Mr. Schneiderman have pretty much abdicated corruption prosecution to U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. More so than the others, D.A. Vance is vulnerable to the political realities of how he can run for office. District attorneys in the five boroughs of New York run for office with the approval of the local county political organization. Since New York is overwhelmingly a Democratic Party enclave, the county Democratic Party chair of each borough must approve of each respective district attorney candidate running for office, meaning D.A. Vance would not dare sacrifice his political career by prosecuting political corruption of officials, operatives, or lobbyists loyal to the county political organization, chaired in his case by Assemblymember Keith Wright, which approves of his candidacy. That is to say, D.A. Vance will not prosecute candidates for public office, their political operatives, or big money donors, who may be engaged in corruption, otherwise D.A. Vance risks alienating himself from his own political supporters. Instead, D.A. Vance touts his prosecution record against activists, paralleling the DOJ's own suppression campaign against activists.

It remains to be seen if the scripted gestures of City Council hearings under Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito will have the same toothless effect on law enforcement reform as the twin City Council resolutions passed a decade ago under former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. The twin resolutions appeared to have no impact on the offices of the city's district attorneys. So long as the government fails to guarantee that police won't use acts of misconduct or brutality against citizens peacefully organizing around their political beliefs, it's difficult to tell how long opponents of reform, like Mr. Goodwin, as well as the city's district attorneys and their political supporters, will be able to benefit from their own constitutional rights. The consequences of demagoguery by opponents of law enforcement reform are obvious : opponents spread fear by predicting spikes in crime to keep the larger citizenry scared of advocates pushing for a reshaping of police tactics. But once one reasons that some citizens have no protections for free speech, assembly, and probable cause, among other rights and civil liberties, one moves the entire citizenry down the slippery slope toward anarchy.

EXCERPT from : Vol. III, Chapter 7 of Roots of Betrayal : The Ethics of Christine Quinn by Louis Flores

After the February 15 anti-war rally, progressives, including supporters of the NYCLU’s efforts to keep the police in check, pushed the City Council to pass two resolutions. These resolutions came about because of the lingering sting of the anti-war rally’s failure to receive a march permit. That other demonstrations were subsequently denied permits, or were subjected to police actions to subvert demonstrations, added fuel to the fire. The first resolution, which was adopted on February 4, 2004, called upon federal, state, and local officials, including city agencies such as the NYPD, to affirm and uphold the civil rights and civil liberties of citizens wishing to hold political demonstrations in New York City. Christine was one of its sponsors. The second resolution, passed on June 28, 2004, called on all government officials to uphold the First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, association, and assembly. Again, Christine was one of its sponsors. These nonbinding resolutions were all that the City Council could muster. There was no more that New York City residents, be they activists or not, could expect in terms of oversight and accountability with regards to the NYPD’s record of violating the First and Fourth Amendments. While it is true that a resolution does lend the authority and influence of the City Council’s support to the cause of protecting civil rights and civil liberties, the City Council was capable of doing more, like withholding funding for controversial police tactics, subpoenaing records of police misconduct and brutality, or referring incidents for further investigation and possible prosecution. But the City Council did neither. In the hearings leading up to the adoption of the first resolution, it was clear that the NYPD was engaging in serious violations. A special report from the City Council Committee on Governmental Operations showed that, “In the aftermath of the numerous confrontations between demonstrators and police at the February 15th rally the Civilian Complaint Review Board (“CCRB”) investigated 54 complaints containing 114 allegations of misconduct by police officers.” Among the NYPD violations the report found was that the police department’s Technical Assistance Response Unit provided to CCRB heavily edited videos in a deliberate effort to disguise the police officers who committed violations. “Thus, many complaints were dropped where the officers went unidentified.” This is how the NYPD operated when it knew its actions were not going to be supervised or subjected to any accountability. How were the City Council resolutions going to address the underlying and ongoing violations of the NYPD ?

Register for the Left Forum to attend the police reform "Veal Pen" Workshop

How Can NYC Police Reform Activists Break Free from the Veal Pen ?

Workshop : How Can NYC Police Reform Activists Break Free from the Veal Pen ?
Date : Saturday, May 31, 2014
Time : 03:20 p.m. - 04:50 p.m.
Place : Session 3, Room 1.92, 540 West 59 Street, New York, NY 10019

Registration is required to attend the Left Forum 2014 : Register here.

Jane Hamsher appropriated the term “veal pen” to describe how the Obama administration subjugates liberal groups and activists in order to demobilize political pressure for reform from the Democratic left. Join us for an intensive workshop designed to challenge groups and activists, who have voluntarily de-escalated political pressure for police reform following the election of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. To demobilize some police reform groups, lobbyists loyal to the mayor now control the media relations for these reform groups. What has been removed from the messaging from these groups has been the urgency for reform that was present before the mayor won last year’s election. In this workshop, designed for experienced activists, we will undertake a specific action and then strategize about how to create new opportunities for organizing in the area of police reform against a backdrop of this new political landscape. In a real "Veal Pen," the bodies of calves atrophy by design. Under the de Blasio administration, which is sensitive to political pressure from the Democratic left as is President Obama, activists’ ideas for police reform are meant to atrophy by design. Since this workshop is designed to overcome frustrations faced by activists, who refuse to be demobilized, the rigorous activities are intended to stretch participants’ ideas and to draw attention to the Veal Pen.

Fifty years after Griswold v. Connecticut, NYPD to accommodate safer sex, but stops short of recognizing privacy rights to contraception [UPDATED]

At a nighttime protest in Jackson Heights, Queens, last year, activists held up a banner with a giant drawing of condom locked in a police handcuff to represent the NYPD's criminalization of the use of contraception.

New York Police Department to stop criminalizing use of contraception -- in some cases

Advocates for sex workers and improved public health won a major concession from the New York Police Department's on-going oppression against citizens when police officials announced that they would stop seizing reproductive contraceptives, namely, condoms, as evidence of criminality in police crackdowns against sex workers.

• RELATED : The change in police procedure will end a policy of oppression that health officials had long criticized as undermining their efforts to protect sex workers from disease. (New York Police to Limit Seizing of Condoms as Evidence of Criminality in Prostitution Cases * The New York Times)

Police announced the change in policy after years of demands from activists that the police were stigmatizing the use of condoms, so much so that health officials had long criticized the police practice as undermining their efforts to protect sex workers from disease. In fact, during the 15 years that former Council Speaker Christine Quinn was in public office, she was the city's most visible female and LGBT politician, and she never made any advancement on overturning the police criminalization of condoms. Indeed, under her incumbency, police biases against trans and gender non-conforming citizens extended the anti-condom dragnet against sex workers to include members of the LGBT community. In several media reports, LGBT New Yorkers attested to being harassed, arrested, and stigmatized by the police for innocently carrying contraception -- in direct violation of their privacy rights. What is more, many HIV/AIDS activists had long objected to the police's stigmatization of the use of condoms as flying in the face of advice from city health officials, who advocated their use for safer sex as a way to decrease the incidence of sexually-transmitted diseases and to prevent unwanted pregnancies. For years, if New Yorkers were caught carrying condoms, the prophylactics could be used as criminal evidence in sex worker prosecution cases -- even though the city's Department of Health distributed condoms to all New Yorkers to promote safer sex and greater public health.

In announcing their change in policy today, NYPD officials carved out a backdoor loophole to retain the right to use condoms as evidence in sex trafficking cases, however.

The nominal changes in NYPD condom policy, being spun under the guise as an advancement to public health, comes almost 50 years since the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in the landmark 1965 case of Griswold v. Connecticut that overturned a state law that had criminalized the use of contraception. In The New York Times article posted to their Web site, there was no mention by police as according any reasoning in the policy change to respect New Yorkers' right to privacy. Nor was it mentioned whether police would stop menacing LGBT New Yorkers as part of its new compromised policy. In respect of reproductive rights, it was never explained how police departments across the United States could opt out of compliance in the first place with the Griswold decision.

The partial backpedal on the condom policy is the NYPD's latest half-measure at reform since the election of Mayor Bill de Blasio. Mr. de Blasio campaigned to end the "stop-and-frisk era," but the mayor contradicted his campaign promise by making a regressive appointment of William Bratton as the city's new police commissioner. Commissioner Bratton has promised to continue to use the controversial police tacking known as stop-and-frisk, which has been ruled to be unconstitutional for its racist impact on the community. Mr. de Blasio also campaigned on the promise to stop the arrests of New Yorkers carrying small amounts of marijuana, but Commissioner Bratton's arrest rate for marijuana possession is actually up from the rate of his predecessor, Raymond Kelly. The NYPD has also promised to disband a controversial demographics unit, which targeted New York's Muslim community, but the police department continues to its practice of racial and religious profiling, and surveillance, of Muslims. As Mayor de Blasio tries to resolve many outstanding litigation cases against the police department over its killing of unarmed, innocent civilians and its policy of using brutality against New Yorkers, the de Blasio administration seems to be neglecting long outstanding cases of minority plaintiffs, such as the Central Park 5, further causing tensions over the new administration's insensitivity to the concerns of people long oppressed by the police. Since Mayor de Blasio supports Commissioner Bratton's "broken windows theory" of policing, the NYPD is expected to continue to target its aggressive policing tactics against the city's poor and people of color.

The government compromises its citizens' right to privacy in the new surveillance state, but what happens to citizens' other fundamental rights that are predicated on privacy ?

Meghan Newcomer, a brilliant future lawyer graduating this year from Fordham Law School, published a "Pelican Brief" of sorts last year in the Fordham Law Review entitled, "Can Condoms be Compelling ? Examining the State Interest in Confiscating Condoms from Suspected Sex Workers," about the criminal crackdown by police departments in New York City, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles against sex workers carrying condoms. In Ms. Newcomer's legal analysis, she examined the government's burden in proving it could violate the fundamental right to contraception, and she found that the government could not achieve a compelling state reason to do so. Ms. Newcomer expertly framed her legal reasoning around the constitutional privacy rights established under the landmark Griswold case and other related rulings and laws. After examining the law, Ms. Newcomer concluded in her article that :

Because the Supreme Court has identified a right for all individuals to be free from state interference in their choice of whether to use contraceptive devices, state actors confiscating condoms from suspected sex workers infringes on that constitutionally protected privacy right. The government’s lack of a compelling state interest in taking condoms, coupled with the failure to narrowly tailor the policy so as to involve the least restrictive infringement of the right, means that the conduct cannot survive strict scrutiny. For this reason, New York City, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles are enforcing unconstitutional policies and must stop confiscating condoms from suspected sex workers.

There are more issues that need review, which were not the focus of Ms. Newcomer's fascinating article in the Fordham Law Review. Since New York City officials, privacy rights advocates, and women's rights groups are not raising alarms about the privacy violations of the police department's condom policy, are citizens basically consenting to the government's gutting of the Griswold decision ?

In the time since the Supreme Court issued its ruling in the Griswold case, the impact of the court's decision has been unmistakable in expanding constitutional rights to privacy in subsequent jurisprudence. Prior to Griswold, there was no court case that found a privacy right guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. After Griswold, the fundamental right to privacy was found from the court's interpretation of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Further landmark Supreme Court case decisions, such as Roe v. Wade, Bowers v. Hardwick, and Lawrence v. Texas, the latter which expanded Bowers by overturning its narrower interpretation, were made possible because of legal precedent that citizens' privacy was protected by the due process clause.

With police departments essentially given discretion to opt out of the law established by the Griswold decision, advocates for police reform are focused on the public health aspects of the dangerous condom policy. Meanwhile, silent are citizens, who appear to be consenting to the wholesale undermining of reproductive freedoms and LGBT civil rights, in addition to the right to privacy established by Griswold. As the government conducts mass warrantless surveillance of its citizens to the outrage of voters, the state doesn't have to go to great lengths to legally violate citizens' privacy rights if the state can first undermine the case law establishing citizens' fundamental rights to privacy. With crime rates so low, why are police departments targeting sex workers carrying condoms ? Perhaps it is to sufficiently restrict citizens' rights under the Griswold case in order to serve the government's "compelling interest" to conduct its unconstitutional surveillance activities. If the state can chip away at privacy rights just enough, it won't technically be violating its citizens' fundamental rights if the state can, ipso facto, succeed at gutting Griswold.

As the government wears down Griswold, where does that leave citizens' rights to an abortion under Roe and to further rights to privacy and substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment under Lawrence ? What about the long social movement to end discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity to which Lawrence helped to give critical mass ?

Does race play a factor in New York City wrongful arrest lawsuit settlements ?

The "Central Park Five" still await the settlement of their wrongful conviction and incarceration lawsuit, but the city is moving mighty swiftly in respect of two other significant cases, where both men are white.

The five black men commonly referred to as the "Central Park Five" are still waiting for the legal settlement of their wrongful conviction and incarceration lawsuits stemming from the 1989 Central Park jogger case. They were convicted in trials conducted in 1990. Teenagers at the time, their convictions were overturned in 2002, and the five men have been waiting for over a decade for New York City to compensate them for having had their lives destroyed.

From left, Antron McCray, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, and Kharey Wise, who served prison sentences after having been wrongly convicted in the Central Park jogger case, appeared together in this photograph at the New York premiere of Ken Burns’s racial tension-tinged documentary, “The Central Park Five,” in November 2012.

Law enforcement in New York City has a long history of discriminating against people of color. In the recent class action Floyd lawsuit that ruled that the New York Police Department's practice known as ''stop-and-frisk'' was unconstitutional, police were faulted for routinely targeting "blacks and Hispanics who would not have been stopped if they were white."

Based on the different treatment that black plaintiffs face in lawsuits against the city over wrongful convictions and incarcerations, it appears that racial profiling may now extend to the city's halls of justice. Complete statistics are not readily available, but for one 12-month span, New York City settled 35 civil rights cases against the NYPD for a total of over $22 million. New York City must be trying to contain the high cost of police brutality and discrimination against people of color by wearing them out in lengthy courthouse proceedings.

• RELATED : ''Central Park Five'' Push de Blasio to Keep Promise to Settle Their Lawsuit (NY1)
• RELATED : David Ranta, Framed by Detective, Will Get $6.4 Million From New York City After Serving 23 Years for Murder (The New York Times)
• RELATED : City Might Be Ready to Settle With Robert Pinter (Gay City News)
• RELATED : Brooklyn boy, 13, shot in head, triggers debate about NYPD focus on broken windows policing (NYC : News & Analysis)

David Ranta, a white male who spent 23 years in jail after having been wrongly convicted of a 1990 murder, will receive $6.4 million settlement negotiated by the Comptroller's Office. What makes Mr. Ranta's case unique is that his demand was settled before he ever filed a lawsuit. Last year, Scott Stringer was elected as the city's comptroller. It's unknown why Mr. Stringer would be motivated to preemptively settle Mr. Ranta's case without consulting the city's Law Department -- but not take any action to settle the Central Park Five wrongful incarceration case.

Meanwhile, New York City might be prepared to settle the case of the wrongful arrest of another white male, Robert Pinter. Mr. Pinter, a gay man, was arrested in 2008 as part of what has been described as dragnet sexual orientation profiling entrapment arrests in an NYPD crackdown against gay adult video stores. It's notable that Mr. Pinter's case is nearing settlement as a result of negotiations by the city's Law Department, even though he was never incarcerated for a term of years like the Central Park Five. After his arrest, Mr. Pinter "initially pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct," Gay City News reported, but Mr. Pinter later "filed a motion to vacate his conviction, which was not opposed by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office," after Mr. Pinter became aware that the NYPD was engaged in sexual orientation profiling against gay men.

Because of the many instances of prejudice that people of color face at the hands of the NYPD, activists are expressing frustration with the lack of reforms at the police department by the new mayor, Bill de Blasio, and by his controversial pick for a new police commissioner, William Bratton. While the Central Park Five await settlement of their case, the NYPD launched a cheap social media marketing gimmick this week to help improve its impression with New Yorkers. After asking citizens to tweet friendly photos of police officers with the #myNYPD hashtag, the police department was overwhelmed by an avalanche of response tweets documenting the long history of police brutality, racial profiling, and other controversial police tactics. One tweet featured the tragic case of Deion Fludd, a black teenager who was beaten senseless by police, eventually leading to death from his injuries. Like other victims or the surviving relatives of victims, the late Mr. Fludd's mother has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the NYPD. With her young son now dead, let's hope Ms. Fludd sees justice in a time frame to make a difference in her life.

• RELATED : Constance Malcolm wrote an op-ed on the murder of her son, Ramarley Graham : "The lives of Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, and so many other New Yorkers like Ramarley — primarily Black and Latino — have not been honored by our justice system." (Justice must be served by U.S. government — for Ramarley Graham's family and for countless others * The New York Daily News)
• RELATED : Before he died, Deion Fludd said he attempted to run away from the brutal cops, who had allegedly chased after the unarmed black teenager, battering him in the head with a flashlight, beating him senseless. (Deion Fludd's mother sues NYPD for using excessive force and causing son's death * DailyMail.uk)

Before 17-year old Deion Fludd died of his injuries, he said he was beaten into a quadriplegic by #myNYPD pic.twitter.com/cBGj68AY0C

— Copwatch (@Copwatch) April 22, 2014

If you want to be part of the conversation about how to bring more attention and focus on efforts to reform law enforcement in New York City, please join us for a special workshop at this year's Left Forum :

• RELATED : How can NYC police reform activists break free from the veal pen ? (The 2014 Left Forum)

The Central Park 5, framed by #mynypd pic.twitter.com/BfPCg3u8qM

— Layla Sola (@ljsola) April 23, 2014