Not Again!: Another Police Shooting of an Unarmed Man of Color in NYC

Yet again we have the news that a New York Police Department officer has shot an unarmed young man of color. This is not the instance of the police shooting a man who is actively presenting an imminent danger, as in the case of the shooter at tourist-crowded Empire State Building incident several weeks ago. The latest case is an entirely different circumstance.

Early Thursday morning an NYPD detective shot and killed an Army reservist on the Grand Central Parkway on his way home from one of his two jobs. Now, it is unfortunately not uncommon for New York City area motorists to make ill-informed driving choices, speeding and switching wrecklessly. It is very dangerous, but it is not grounds for the police to shoot the driver.

Here is how DNAinfo reported the story:

QUEENS — An NYPD detective shot and killed an unarmed man behind the wheel of a car on the Grand Central Parkway on Thursday morning as an off-duty cop slept in the back seat, police said.
Noel Polanco, 22, was in his 2012 Honda Fit Hybrid with two female passengers — one of them a police officer who was placed on modified duty recently because of a disciplinary issue — when he was spotted driving erratically in the eastbound lanes about 5:15 a.m., police said.
Friends said Polanco, whose nickname was Sparks, was an U.S. Army reservist who lived with his mother and recently lost his stepfather to suicide.
"He's been stressed since, but he never really did anything wrong," said Tito Cordero, 27, a friend of Polanco's. "He doesn't fight. He doesn't drink. He doesn't smoke. He just works to get his mind off all the problems."
Polanco allegedly cut between two unmarked NYPD Emergency Service Unit Apprehension Team vehicles, police said. He then darted into the left lane and tailgated another vehicle, the NYPD said. After that vehicle didn't move, Polanco shifted back between the two police vehicles in the right lane, hitting the brakes and forcing the NYPD vehicles to slow down, sources said.
Cops turned on their lights and sirens and attempted to pull Polanco's car over, sources said. The NYPD vehicles positioned themselves in front of and behind the Honda until it finally came to a stop at Exit 7 near LaGuardia Airport, police said. Two cops — a uniformed sergeant and a detective — came out of the police vehicle in front of the Honda and approached the vehicle.
As Det. Hassan Hamdy approached on the passenger side of Polanco's car, he saw Polanco reach down and grab an object that appeared to be a power tool, sources said. Hamdy fired a single shot through the passenger window into Polanco's abdomen, sources said.

The last quote gives the police's official story. Notice that there is always some kind of excuse: the police shooting victim is "reaching" for something. And that something often turns out to be non-threatening, a wallet, a candy bar, in this case, even the police are citing an object not likely to be used at that instance --don't power drills need power, have they ascertained that the drill in Polanco's hand, pointed at the officer? Not even that much was in the police's excuse. When Polanco's passenger is quoted, we hear that his hands were on the steering wheel, and that this shooting could be a road rage incident on the police detective's part.

"Noel didn't have a chance to put his hands up. They screamed, 'Put up your hands!' and shot at the same time," said Diane DeFerrari, 36, a bartender who was riding in the front passenger seat, according to the New York Daily News. "It was simultaneous. There was a pop and Noel gasped."
Sources said DeFerrari told investigators that Polanco's hands were on the wheel when Hamdy shot him.
"They acted in pure road rage," DeFerrari told the newspaper.

The rest of DNAinfo's story can be read here. Here is the Daily News's report on the story.

Parallels to another tragic shooting by the police
This story has echoes of another very questionable police shooting this year. In Feburary police in the Bronx trailed Ramarley Graham to his home, and shot him when he was inside. The Socialist Worker reported,

On February 2, 18-year-old Ramarley Linden Graham was shot and killed by New York City police officer Richard Haste in the bathroom of the home where he lived in the Bronx.
Graham's grandmother, Gwendolyn Henry, and 6-year-old brother, Chinnor Campbell, watched in horror as officers broke down the door of their home, cornered Graham in the bathroom and shot him in the chest. Henry was then dragged off to the NYPD's 47th Precinct--where, after the shock and trauma of watching officers kill her beloved grandson, she was subjected to seven hours of interrogation.
Predictably, police claim the officers thought Graham had a gun, but admit now he was unarmed. Police also say they were in "hot pursuit" of Graham, but surveillance video disproves this, too--Graham can be seen walking at a leisurely pace, entering his home and closing the door behind him before Haste and his supervisor, Sgt. Scott Morris, force their way in.
More than three months have passed, and Ramarley Graham's family is still waiting for answers and demanding that police be held accountable for murdering their son.

The rest of Socialist Worker's article can be read here.

As reported in the Nation magazine, Graham's case has been a cause for community mobilization. With the shooting of Polanco, there is another occasion for the community to mobilize against police violence. Where and when will this stop? Why are the out of control police reactions in response to encounters with you men of color?

Ray Kelly's NYPD has a lot of explaining to do on a range of issues: whether it is billing a dead man's family for a dented NYPD vehicle --that caused the man's death (it also made the news in Cincinnati press!), or for the harassment of press at the Occupy Wall Street: "Journalists: NPPA Sends Letter To Ray Kelly Denouncing Police Abuse Of The Press."
(The NPPA's general counsel wrote to Kelly:
It is our strongly asserted position that while the press may not have a greater right of access than the public, they have no less right either...Given these ongoing issues and incidents we believe that more is needed in order to improve police-press relations and to clarify the ability of credentialed and non-credentialed journalists to photograph and record on public streets without fear of intimidation and arrest. Therefore, we urge you meet with us once again so that we may help devise a better system of education and training for department members starting from the top down.) Additionally, AlterNet reported, September 27, 2012, that "The NYPD has expanded into a massive global anti-terror operation with surveillance and military capabilities unparalled in the history of local US law enforcement."

In an "unusual" meeting, NYPD gathers press corps to address recent A.P. reports on surveillance of Muslim groups; Bloomberg successors timid

(Scroll below for Bloomberg successors to mayor, and their taking wait and see approach to NYPD profiling Muslims issue.)
From Capital New York:

By Joe Pompeo, 2:42 pm Feb. 24, 2012

The Lineup collects the media stories, big and small, that are on our radar each day.
A.P. vs. NYPD

Late yestserday afternoon, we got a tip that NYPD brass had rounded up all the local police beat reporters for a spontaneous meeting related to something that has become a perpetual thorn in the department's side in recent months: The Associated Press' ongoing probe of police surveillance of Muslim communities in and around the city.

Specifically, we were told, the meeting was convened in response to the latest installment in the series, which began last August—a report earlier this week that "Americans living and working in New Jersey's largest city were subjected to surveillance as part of the New York Police Department's effort to build databases of where Muslims work, shop and pray. The operation in Newark was so secretive even the city's mayor [Cory Booker] says he was kept in the dark."

Indeed, When the new A.P. report landed on Wednesday, Booker was furious, telling the Star-Ledger: "I have deep concerns and I am very disturbed that this might have been surveillance that was based on no more than religious affiliation." And so once again, the NYPD spun into damage control mode.

The Daily News reports:

At an unusual press briefing, chief spokesman Paul Browne said the NYPD operates under the tightest civil liberties regulations of any police department in the land.

“There's been a suggestion that what we are doing doesn't comport with legal requirements, and that's not the case,” Browne said. “Everything we're doing is done constitutionally.”

For the most part, both city tabloids have come down hard on the A.P. investigation in their opinion pages, painting the wire as unpatriotic and naive for questioning tactics that some would view as a necessary defense in the war on terror. Earlier this week, for instance, New York Post columnist Michael A. Walsh suggested that the A.P. "for months now has been waging a journalistic jihad against the NYPD and its counterterrorism tactics in the name of 'civil rights.'"

But the A.P. found a more sympathetic ear in today's News, which includes a piece from progressive columnist Juan Gonzalez in which he calls the NYPD program "religious profiling on steroids" and writes of the department's controversial spokesman: "Browne is one the most capable and likeable NYPD spokesman in decades. But he has been caught making so many false statements lately about the department’s anti-terrorism program that his credibility has been irreparably damaged."

VARYING QUALITY RESPONSES FROM BLOOMBERG SUCCESSORS FOR NYC MAYOR:
(From "Asked about Police surveillance of Muslims, Bloomberg's successors take a wait-and-see approach", Feb. 25, 2012)
From City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's spokesperson:

"Regarding the NYPD's actions in New Jersey and other jurisdictions, unless we know that laws were broken or someone's civil liberties were violated it is difficult to judge police techniques without knowing the specifics of the case," said Josh Isay, a spokesman for Quinn.

From former city comptroller and head of the pre-Bloomberg Board of Education, Bill Thompson:

“The NYPD must continue to be vigilant in protecting the people of New York City from terrorism," said Bill Thompson, the 2009 Democratic nominee for mayor and former city comptroller. "But to single out one segment of our diverse, religious community for surveillance without cause raises questions of fairness and equal justice.”

From Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, "who has called for a federal probe into whether the NYPD's stop-and-frisk policy unfairly targets young black and Latino men (without calling for an outright halt to the practice), said the surveillance policy, too, needs a closer look," Capital New York said. Scott Stringer said:

"The New York Police Department has done an extraordinary job protecting our city from the ever-present threat of terrorism, no matter where it originates," Stringer said. "Whenever the police get wind of a potential threat, we expect them to pursue the matter with all deliberate speed and keep New York City safe. But it is troubling when people are subject to surveillance and investigation simply because they are members of a particular group. We need to ensure that our efforts to combat the threat of terrorism does not trample on the civil liberties that all citizens have a right to enjoy.”

From publisher Tom Allon:

"The surveillance and random checking of American citizens is an extremely complex issue that cannot be reduced to a sound bite," Allon said in a lengthy email. "'Profiling' is a loaded term that has somehow replaced 'probable cause' in law enforcement lexicon. We need to face realpolitik realities rather politically correct idealism. The people who attacked us 10 years ago and in 1993 were all Muslims. The few planned attacks that the NYPD has thwarted since then were also plotted by young Muslims ... If you randomly stop a fidgeting 20-year-old Muslim on the street or on the subway, this should be called `probable cause' rather than `profiling.'"

"[New York City Public Advocate] Bill de Blasio was traveling and couldn't be reached for comment," Capital New York wrote. CNY was not able to reach current city comptroller John Liu.

Will Autocratic NYC Mayoral Power Mean 100s of Homeless Deaths This Winter? & Calls for Indep. Police Oversight

We hear much about the ill effects of autocratic mayoral control upon public education. The details are too numerous to account here. Just see Ed Notes Online or the latest ATR farce details at NYCATR.

The latest outrage and testament to the crazed policy decisions of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's being drunk with power is the following plan by New York, to insist that single homeless persons prove that they are homeless (Yes, this is real, not GBN from another NYC blog):
From various New York news outlets, this from WNBC-TV:
"Analysis: The City Demands the Homeless Prove It"
(a photo caption)

A sign of a man panhandling for money is displayed on the streets of Manhattan October 26, 2009 in New York City. In a recently released report by the advocacy group Coalition for the Homeless it was revealed that the numbers of homeless people using New York City shelters each night has reached an all time high. Since Mayor Michael Bloomberg took office eight years ago there has been a 45 percent increase in shelter use with over 39,000 homeless people, including 10,000 homeless families, checking in to city shelters every evening. The group also said that 2009 has turned out to be 'the worst on record for New York City homelessness since the Great Depression. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

and the text of the news story, including some hard hitting comments:
IT COMES DOWN TO SAVING MONEY:

New York has a tradition of caring for its most vulnerable people. That’s why it’s shocking to hear that homeless single people will have to prove they are truly homeless to get into a shelter.

My colleague, Melissa Russo, reports that the city’s Department of Homeless Services plans to save $4 million a year by cracking down on those who are unable to show they have no other option but going to a homeless shelter. I have covered the homeless crisis in New York for 32 years -- and this latest development is outrageous.

It was back in 1979 that a young, idealistic lawyer named Robert Hayes brought a lawsuit in behalf of all homeless men in New York. He filed it in the name of a man named Robert Callahan. On a cold winter night, Hayes introduced me to Callahan, who was sleeping on a bench in a park in Kips Bay. Callahan said: “I want a home.”

The State Supreme Court ultimately ruled that everyone had a constitutional right to shelter. It was a landmark decision for New York and the nation.

Over the years various bureaucrats have nibbled away at the essence of that decision. Now, the city’s Homeless Commissioner Seth Diamond, says: “People who have alternatives are not homeless. If they have a brother or a sister who can house them, that’s where they should go.”

This sets the city up as the ultimate judge of whether or not someone is actually homeless. It’s an astonishing turn in a history in which New York stands out as a place where compassion, not the dollar sign, rules.

As winter approaches, is compassion out of style? In this city, the Callahan case should be enshrined as a standard for charity and decency. It’s hard to accept that this is no longer the case. When the first person freezes to death on the streets, will the bureaucracy change its mind? Are we going to try to force relatives to take in homeless people? What provision in the Constitution or the law entitles City Hall to do that?

Mary Brosnahan of the Coalition for the Homeless told me: “This new policy is unconscionable. Just as winter approaches and Thanksgiving, we are putting the most vulnerable people at severe risk. People will die if this policy goes unchallenged.”

And the coalition intends to challenge it. Meanwhile, at last reports, there are a record 39,000 homeless people in New York, including single adults and families.

People have written to NBC New York about this development. Richele Lewis wrote: “The option of sleeping on someone’s floor is not considered adequate housing although it is better than having to sleep on the subway or in a park…”

And an e-mail from Eva Clark: “It’s hard to sleep on someone’s floor, especially if they really don’t wish you there and wish you get out and go somewhere and get lost and don’t come back.”

As Thanksgiving and Christmas approach, I’m inclined to believe that compassion is not out of style. In the scriptures are the words: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Mother Teresa said: “At the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made, how many great things we have done. We will be judged by ‘I was hungry and you gave me to eat, I was naked and you clothed me, I was homeless and you took me in.'"

* * *
NYPD AND CALLS FOR INDEPENDENT OVERSIGHT
(I have to move on, so here are quick parts --maybe I'll be able to clean up later.)
Alisa Chang (I spelt it properly, as compared to WNYC which botched her first name on the website) reported, "Police Misconduct Cases Draw Calls For Greater NYPD Oversight," on Friday, November 4, afternoon.
the lede:

With recent reports of misconduct within the New York City Police Department mounting, criminal justice experts are calling for greater oversight of the department.

A new study by the Citizens Crime Commission, an independent non-profit organization that focuses on criminal justice reform, shows that major cities other than New York are more aggressive in monitoring their police departments.

Richard Aborn, president of the Commission, said New York City should follow examples set by Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia.

"They have, what I think, are the gold standards of oversight," said Aborn during an interview on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show on Friday. "They are independent of the department, they are transparent , they have compulsory power, meaning they have subpoena power, and they are permanent. And the NYPD doesn't have any of that."

Recently, 16 police officers were indicted in the Bronx as a result a ticket-fixing investigation; seven New York City narcotics investigators were convicted of planting drugs on people; eight current and former police officers were indicted for smuggling guns; an officer in Staten Island was charged with making a false arrest; and three officers were convicted of robbing a perfume warehouse.

Click to the article's link above for the full WNYC story.

8 NYPD Officers Caught in Import Guns into Brooklyn Operation

Eight New York Police Department officers have been charged in a sting operation with involvement in a conspiracy to bring guns into the city.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, in a joint news conference with N.Y.C. FBI office head Diego Rodriguez and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly announced the results of the FBI's investigation.

New York Times' story on the gun transit into Brooklyn operation was accompanied by notes on how this news comes in the midst of several police corruption developments:

And the arrests come at a difficult time for a department, the largest municipal police force in the nation, already besieged by corruption accusations. In recent weeks, testimony at the trial of a narcotics detective has featured accusations that he and his colleagues in Brooklyn and Queens planted drugs or lied under oath to meet arrest quotas and earn overtime, leading to the arrests of eight officers, the dismissal of hundreds of drug cases because of their destroyed credibility and the payout of more than $1 million in taxpayer money to settle false arrest lawsuits.

Two other officers, in unrelated federal cases, have been charged in recent weeks with criminal civil-rights violations accusing them of trumping up charges against innocent victims. In one case, on Staten Island, a white officer is accused of falsely arresting a black man and then bragging about it using a racial slur. And in the coming days, 16 officers are expected to face charges in a ticket-fixing scandal in the Bronx.

NYPD fabricated drug charges vs. innocent people to meet arrest quotas, former detective testifies

AND,New York Times, Jim Dwyer, "The Drugs? They Came From the Police"

Jim Marzulli, New York Daily News, October 13, 2011, "We fabricated drug charges against innocent people to meet arrest quotas, former detective testifies"

A former NYPD narcotics detective snared in a corruption scandal testified it was common practice to fabricate drug charges against innocent people to meet arrest quotas. [Photo]

The bombshell testimony from Stephen Anderson is the first public account of the twisted culture behind the false arrests in the Brooklyn South and Queens narc squads, which led to the arrests of eight cops and a massive shakeup.

Anderson, testifying under a cooperation agreement with prosecutors, was busted for planting cocaine, a practice known as "flaking," on four men in a Queens bar in 2008 to help out fellow cop Henry Tavarez, whose buy-and-bust activity had been low.

"Tavarez was ... was worried about getting sent back [to patrol] and, you know, the supervisors getting on his case," he recounted at the corruption trial of Brooklyn South narcotics Detective Jason Arbeeny.

"I had decided to give him [Tavarez] the drugs to help him out so that he could say he had a buy," Anderson testified last week in Brooklyn Supreme Court.

He made clear he wasn't about to pass off the two legit arrests he had made in the bar to Tavarez.

"As a detective, you still have a number to reach while you are in the narcotics division," he said.

NYPD officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Anderson worked in the Queens and Brooklyn South narcotics squads and was called to the stand at Arbeeny's bench trial to show the illegal conduct wasn't limited to a single squad.

"Did you observe with some frequency this ... practice which is taking someone who was seemingly not guilty of a crime and laying the drugs on them?" Justice Gustin Reichbach asked Anderson.

"Yes, multiple times," he replied.

The judge pressed Anderson on whether he ever gave a thought to the damage he was inflicting on the innocent.

"It was something I was seeing a lot of, whether it was from supervisors or undercovers and even investigators," he said.

"It's almost like you have no emotion with it, that they attach the bodies to it, they're going to be out of jail tomorrow anyway; nothing is going to happen to them anyway."

The city paid $300,000 to settle a false arrest suit by Jose Colon and his brother Maximo, who were falsely arrested by Anderson and Tavarez. A surveillance tape inside the bar showed they had been framed.

A federal judge presiding over the suit said the NYPD's plagued by "widespread falsification" by arresting officers.

Click for original NY Daily News article with photo and comments.

AND,New York Times, Jim Dwyer, "The Drugs? They Came From the Police"

Is it time for another commission to investigate police corruption? All the venom against teachers, never shall patterns in the New York Police Department be questioned.

Galling WNYC, Village Voice inconsistency re NYPD, DOE malfeasance coverage

Yesterday (Wednesday, August 25, 2010) I heard WNYC's Brian Lehrer speak about New York State's victory in the "Race to the Top." The voice of New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein graced the show. While there was at least one caller that bemoaned the rising stress on teachers from test-driven teaching to the test, the general reception of Klein was congratulatory in New York State's competition with neighboring New Jersey.
A blogger has cited the Broad Foundation's friendly relationship with WNYC after my open question: why is WNYC treating New York City's Department of Education with such kid gloves?
One would hope that the exposure of New York City's plummeting scores (when the notoriously easy New York State tests were made more difficult this year) would prompt WNYC to lessen the fawning treatment of Chancellor Klein. No. Klein was allowed to wax on an on, in an uninterrupted soliloquy. Valuable time that could have gone to parents or teachers was lost in deference to his ego.
In contrast to the kid gloves treatment that Lehrer gave Klein last Thursday, August 19, note these essential questions that a poster to Lehrer's site offered:

1. Isn't Klein a total failure? Eight years of an experiment on our kids and no progress?

2. Wasn't claiming progress on flawed tests a lie?
Wasn't he promoting and firing teachers on the basis of these flawed tests? And telling parents which schools are good on the basis of these tests? And so if he knew these tests were flawed why did he give all this bad advice and claim progress that didn't happen?

3. Shouldn't he just resign?

When Lehrer usually organizes a segment on an issue with opposing perspectives he invites guests from different sides of an issue. Not so with the NYC DOE. No Leonie Haimson, no Juan Gonzalez or no Norm Scott for balance. On Lehrer's show there is no speaking truth to the power of Mr. Klein.

*SUDDENLY NO LEHRER FOR ONE OF THE MAYOR'S DEPARTMENTS WHEN NYPD MISDEEDS ARE THE SUBJECT*
So, it was grandly disappointing when Lehrer segued over to a piece dealing with insensitive treatment of police officers. The piece centered around "NYPD Tapes 5: The Corroboration," the latest of a series of journalistic pieces by The Village Voice that has looked into corrupt practices in the New York Police Department, New York City's police force. It was obvious --but Lehrer did not pick up on it-- that there is a direct parallel: in both the NYC DOE and in the NYPD there is a management culture that only values the professionals, teachers and police officers, respectively, on the basis of their statistics.

In both cases the public suffers. Students get a dullened education that only lives for tests (see Gabe Pressman's report from his interview of Diane Ravitch and see this City University of New York study, "Teaching to the Test: How No Child Left Behind Impacts Language Policy, Curriculum, and Instruction for English Language Learners"). No appreciation of knowledge, just prep for the test, all to the end of making the great Oz (his holiness Mike Bloomberg). In the case of police performance, police offices do not report larcenous thefts as such, police officers willy-nilly harass black and Hispanic New Yorkers (see this Times story and this New York Civil Liberties Union report), all in the name of protecting the great Oz (mayor Bloomberg, just to remind you) and his ever improving statistics.

The Village Voice's disturbing report is a good deed. Perhaps the Pulitzer Prize committee will reward the newspaper or its reporters. But why the attention to stats mania in the police department, but no attention to similar abuses in the Education Department? The allegations that police department supervisors pressure police officers, with a singular mind to statistics, in self-interest for promotion or bonuses resonate with the allegations that teachers make about principals that harass teachers over test statistics. Yet, neither The Village Voice nor WNYC will address the parallel patterns of harassing of teachers and mis-serving the students.

Where is our free press? Where are the investigative reporters? The "alternative" or "non-commercial" media outlets fail at their duty. We bloggers don't carry the same weight as these outlets or the daily newspapers. Otherwise, Bloomberg would have lost to Bill Thompson last fall.

NYPD photographed protesters outside King Bloomberg's home

On Thursday January 21, 2010, students, parents and teachers protested outside of King ("mayor") Michael Bloomberg's East 79th Street residence.

Little did they plan for surveillance work done by police officers from roof-tops, aiming down at the protesters.
Shouldn't people have the right to peacefully protest?
Where's the outcry from the elected representatives?
Oh yeah, I forgot, we're not in a democracy. This is a city-state, under the thumb of an autocratic king.

Here's the NY1 report from today, January 24:

Parents, students and teachers say the New York City Police Department violated their civil rights during a protest last week.

They released a video Sunday showing several officers taking pictures of them as they protested plans to close city schools outside Mayor Bloomberg's home on Tuesday.

In 1985, a federal court ruled it is illegal and a violation of civil rights for the NYPD to take photos of protesters, unless they have cause to believe a crime may be committed.

"It was a very peaceful demonstration, and I'm outraged that I'm being photographed. There was no mention of any photography going to take place at that meeting and I resent the fact that I have to come home after living up to my fulfillment, fighting for my rights to protest on that block and having my picture taking without my permission," said protest participant Lydia Bellahcene.

"We want an explanation as to, one, why these officers were taking pictures of the demonstration, and two, what is the NYPD planning to do with those pictures? We need to be assured that no one, no one's civil rights have been, or will be violated," said civil rights attorney Norman Siegel.

A police spokesperson says the pictures did not focus on individuals and were taken for crowd control planning which is permitted under the 1985 law.

Criminalizing the Classroom - It has gone overboard under Bloomberg

Truth be told the NYPD replaced the NYC Board of Education-provided police by a 1998 Board of Education vote; however, conditions have worsened for our schoolchildren under Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Click here for the NYCLU report, "Criminalizing the Classroom."

The blog, "Bloomberg Watch," has a valuable summary of the report on the rough mistreatment of public school students.

At the start of the 2005-2006 school year, the city employed a total of 4,625 School Safety Agents (SSAs) and at least 200 armed police officers assigned exclusively to schools. These numbers would make the NYPD’s School Safety Division alone the tenth largest police force in the country – larger than the police forces of Washington, D.C., Detroit, Boston, or Las Vegas.

Because these school-assigned police personnel are not directly subject to the supervisory authority of school administrators, and because they often have not been adequately trained to work in educational settings, SSAs and police officers often arrogate to themselves authority that extends well beyond the narrow mission of securing the safety of the students and teachers. They enforce school rules relating to dress and appearance. They make up their own rules regarding food or other objects that have nothing whatsoever to do with school safety.

On occasion they subject educators who question the NYPD’s treatment of students to retaliatory arrests. More routinely, according to our interviews and survey, they subject students to inappropriate treatment including:

• Derogatory, abusive and discriminatory comments and conduct;
• Intrusive searches;
• Unauthorized confiscation of students’ personal items, including food, cameras and essential school supplies;
• Inappropriate sexual attention;
• Physical abuse; and
• Arrest for minor non-criminal violations of school rules.

READ ABOUT THE VULGAR, UNCONSTITUTIONAL TREATMENT OF AN ELECTED STUDENT LEADER, AN ELEVENTH GRADER AT THE WADLEIGH SCHOOL (I have scrubbed the NYPD officer's profanity.)

Carlos

Throughout the morning, police personnel hurled invective and threats at the students they were charged with protecting. Officers threatened students with arrest for refusing to turn over cell phones, for stepping out of line, and for refusing to be scanned. Officers cursed at students and scoffed at educators. When a student wandered out of line, officers screamed, “Get the f--- back in line!” When a school counselor asked the officers to refrain from cursing, one officer retorted, “I can do and say whatever I want,” and continued, with her colleagues, to curse.

The threats of arrest turned out to be more than bluster. Several Wadleigh students were hauled to the 28th Police Precinct that morning for minor non-criminal violations of school rules. Among them was Carlos, an eleventh grader and Vice-President of the School Government Association. Carlos, who worked thirty to forty hours each week after school and needed to communicate frequently with his mother about his whereabouts, did not want the police to confiscate his cell phone. When he became aware of the police activity in the school, he chose to remain outside in order to call his mother and ask her to pick up the phone, which she agreed to do.

As Carlos stood outside the school, a police officer approached and asked for identification. Carlos explained: “My mother’s on the way. She should be just up the block. You can talk to her.” In response, the officer said to a second officer, “What are we going to do with this smart aleck? The second officer replied, “Take him to the precinct.”

The officers handcuffed Carlos, seized his cell phone, forced him into a police vehicle, and took him to the precinct without informing school officials or his mother. At the precinct, Carlos was ordered to remove his belt and shoelaces and was forced into a cell. Meanwhile, Carlos’s mother – who did not find Carlos waiting for her when she arrived at the school to pick up his cell phone – began a frantic search for her child. Many phone calls later, she learned that Carlos had been arrested. When she arrived at the precinct, officers returned Carlos’s phone to her, but refused to release her son into her care. Carlos was released only after his mother had finally left the precinct. Upon his release, the officers issued him a summons threatening that if he did not appear in court, a warrant would be issued for his arrest. The charges were ultimately dropped. What happened to Carlos and the other students at Wadleigh Secondary School on November 17 was not an aberration. In fact, this scenario takes place in New York City schools every day.

I supported Bill de Blasio for Public Advocate; I would hope that, in office, he will advocate for the children and stop this flagrant abuse of the children.

I supported the formation of the Coalition for Public Education; stopping the police abuse of our city's schoolchildren should be a number one agenda item for the organization.