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Dear Friends:
The NYPD's at best, dubious & dumb &, at worst, violent & brutal, actions have lately been more in the news than usual. We at PROP thought it was fitting for us, as a police reform organization, to comment on & issue a critical analysis of those actions
PROP STATEMENT ON THIS SEASON OF BAD POLICING EXPOSED
Years ago an assistant DA in the Manhattan's DA office reached out to us at PROP -- he wished to reveal, anonymously, the unjust & problematic practices he observed regularly by the NYPD & his office. "We harm people everyday", he said by way of explaining why he contacted us.
It is true that the NYPD harms are an everyday thing. And it is also true that at times the department's bad practices & policies become especially exposed to public viewing or at least to virtually anyone who's paying attention. We are in such a season at the moment.
VIRAL TIMES SQUARE INCIDENT -- When new video became public clearly contradicting the NYPD account of the January 27 incident, police spokespeople continued to lie about what happened. First, the men, all Latinos & referred to as "migrants" by the press, were not blocking pedestrian traffic, as the NYPD claimed. The video shows people easily walking past the men who were hanging out in front of a homeless shelter. Also, again in contrast to the NYPD story, all the men were obeying the cops' order to move on. And, most tellingly, it was an officer who first assaulted one of the men, grabbing him by his coat & throwing him up against the wall of a nearby building. Yet, despite the evidence to the contrary, the NYPD persists in promoting its false narrative, & a number of the men are locked up on Rikers Island & face possible prison sentences.
THE KILLING OF WIN ROZARIO -- Similarly, when Attorney General Letitia James' office released the video of this tragic incident, the NYPD continued to deny the hard truth revealed about an officer needlessly firing his gun. 19 years old & already plagued by a history of mental health problems, Win Rozario was experiencing a psychiatric crisis. In his apartment with his mother & younger brother, he called 911 for help. Two cops show up, & one of them immediately draws his gun. Clearly frantic, Rozario's mother gets in front of her son, seemingly trying both to protect & to calm him. For reasons that are unclear, the cops yell at the mother to get out of the way. Rozario holds a kitchen knife, but remains a safe distance from the cops who keep admonishing the boy's mother to back off. At about 2 minutes in, the mother is no longer standing in front of the boy & one of the cops opens fire, shooting & killing Rozario. Despite the NYPD claiming that, at the time of the shooting, the boy was lunging at the cops, that claim is simply & plainly false. In reality, the shooting has the virtual appearance of an execution, a "hit job."
COPS ON COLUMBIA CAMPUS -- Regarding the mass arrests on her campus, Columbia's President Minouche Shafik applauded the NYPD "for their incredible professionalism & support". Student journalists painted a different picture, as shown in this headline in the student newspaper, the Columbia Spectator: "Columbia Enabled the NYPD To Suppress Free Press As It Brutalized Our Peers". Other hard truths reported by students & student journalists included: no legal observers allowed; no student press allowed into Hamilton Hall, the building on campus that protesting students had occupied; took over an hour for a student punched down the stairs to get medical help, though EMS was supposed to be on standby; NYPD arrested random people who were in a different building & were not involved in the protest; students with lacerations & swollen faces got tackled to the ground & thrown downstairs; multiple students were so injured that they had to be taken straight to the hospital. Mayor Eric Adams also praised NYPD officers for their good work & forbearance in very difficult circumstances.
While absorbing the information being exposed during "a season of bad policing", it's important to understand 2 critical & relevant things. First, as we said at the start, the NYPD & our so-called justice system harm people everyday. Second, if we as a city & a society, do not take significant steps to curb the power & standing of police departments, such as the NYPD here, they will persist in abusing that power to the detriment of any notion of justice we claim to honor & to the quality of life of the most vulnerable groups in our midst.
Please feel free be in touch with questions &/or comments about PROP's ongoing work or about the views expressed in this letter.
As always, many thanks for your interest & support.
Onward,
Bob & Michaela
Bob Gangi,
PROP Director
917-327-7648
rpagangi@gmail.com
Michaela Bapis,
PROP Project Coordinator
michaelabapis@gmail.com
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