Manhattan: Shame on Harry Siegel (“The top cop finds the sweet spot,” column, March 26) and the Daily News (“A kinder NYPD,” editorial) for swallowing whole the plate of goodies served up by NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton when he claims that his department is reducing the number of punitive interactions that its officers have with people of color in our city.
Good journalism should involve checking with groups like the Police Reform Organizing Project that monitor police practices on the ground. Our representatives regularly visit the arraignment parts of the city’s criminal courts to observe and record the general proceedings — specifically who cops arrest and on what charges. Since last summer, we have seen 801 cases, with 753 involving people of color. Among the most common charges for which the defendants have been cuffed and confined: having an open alcohol container, being in a park after dusk, riding a bike on the sidewalk and begging.
Despite Bratton’s sweet talk, the reality is that the NYPD’s “broken windows” law-enforcement approach is marked by blatantly discriminatory tactics that continue every day to target African-American New Yorkers who engage in low-level infractions that many people see as innocuous. A related truth is that the kinds of activities that people of color get arrested and ticketed for in our city have been virtually decriminalized in prosperous white communities.
Next time The News speaks with Bratton, hopefully you will do more to fulfull your journalistic responsibility and challenge his claims with hard facts about the NYPD’s harsh and unjust actions. Robert Gangi
Director, Police Reform Organizing Project
Director, Police Reform Organizing Project
Zero tolerance
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