This is the truth that black and Latino and queer and otherwise disenfranchised New Yorkers have known for decades, if not centuries: The NYPD has never been New Yorks Finest. The life-threatening danger that New Yorks police department poses to its citizens of color is so clear, so well-tread, that discussing it here would be tiresome if it wasnt so necessary and so agonizing. This year, there was Eric Garner, the unarmed father of six who was choked to death by a cop with an alleged history of aggressive misconduct toward black men, and whose death went completely unprosecuted. There was also Akai Gurley, declared a total innocent by NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton, but only after he was shot and killed by a rookie cop in the hallway of his own apartment building; Denise Stewart, dragged nearly naked from her home by a dozen cops who mistakenly knocked on her door after receiving a 911 call from another unit; Rosan Miller, given a mercifully nonfatal chokehold for grilling up food on the sidewalk in front of her house (this is what mercy toward black people looks like from the NYPD: a chokehold that doesnt kill you). Last year, there was Kimani Gray, shot dead in the street at 16 years old, and before that, Tamon Robinson, Shereese Francis, Ramarley Graham, Alberta Spruill, Amadou Diallo. The list goes on and horribly on. But the world is changing. Stop-and-frisk has slowed, if not entirely ended. Thanks to collective action in the wake of Garners death, outcry over the NYPDs brutality and recklessness became too loud for the department or the city or its white establishment to ignore this year. Mayor de Blasios experience raising a son at high risk of NYPD killing makes him a compassionate and impassioned, if not always effective, advocate for change. His administration, the incisive editorials in the New York Times and the New York Daily News, and, most of all, the thrilling sight of people taking to the streets to demand justice have made New York feel like the city it wants to be—the greatest city in the world.
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 01:24:05 +0000
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