Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has called for a Department of Justice investigation into the NYPD’s Stop and Frisk policy. In this interview with CNN’s Susan Candiotti, he says stop and frisk involves a “profiling issue that must be resolved.”

•

Dr. Cornel West visited Democracy Now after his arrest last Friday during Stop Mass Incarceration Network’s protest against the NYPD’s “Stop and Frisk” policy at the 28th Precinct in Harlem. Dr. West discusses stop and frisk, corporate greed, and the need for an all-inclusive movement.

•

Noche and Jamel — the two young organizers held overnight — were released from jail Saturday night.  They were hit with charges of resisting arrest and obstruction.  People should demand that these charges and all the charges on everyone arrested on Friday be dropped.

•  •  5 notes

On Friday afternoon in Harlem people stood up and said “Enough!” to our youth getting jacked up and humiliated every day by the NYPD’s Stop and Frisk program. Cornel West, Carl Dix, Rev. Stephen Phelps, Rev. Earl Kooperkamp and 29 others were arrested in a non violent civil disobedience action blocking the doors at the 28th NYPD precinct in Harlem. Hundreds came out in support including a contingent from OCCUPY WALL STREET which endorsed the action the night before.

700,000 youth will be stopped and frisked in NYC this year. This is the first step in a pipeline that has locked 2.3 million in prison. People movingly testified to their experience of being degraded and humiliated and treated like criminals just for being Black or Latino. Those who have had to live with the fear that these “routine” stops can result in your death if you dare to ask what right the police have to stop you - were able to feel what it’s like to not just have to take it. Because these 33 protesters put their bodies on the line to act – while 100’s of others stood with them, supporting and bearing witness – you have to say it was a beautiful day for the people.

Time to Get Organized and Fight to Win

A movement of resistance was born today but now it’s up to you to help take this forward. We are calling you to step up and be part of what is needed to stop this!

Release and Drop the Charges Against Noche & Jamel

#1: The police singled out 2 youth organizers of the protest, Noche & Jamel – releasing all the other protesters but them. One of these youths is a member of the People’s Neighborhood Patrol of Harlem whose purpose is to prevent law enforcement from violating the peoples’ rights and brutalizing them under the color of authority. The first thing in building this movement: Demand these young fighters’ release and donate funds for their legal defense.

#2: Come Sunday, October 23, 2011 to the IMPORTANT “GET ORGANIZED” MEETING to organize the next action and the movement to end mass incarceration, ST. MARY’S CHURCH, 2:00 PM, 126th Street between Old Broadway and Amsterdam Ave.

When Cornel West and Carl Dix began this movement they wrote: “If you are shocked to hear that this kind of thing happens in this so-called land of freedom and democracy - and it does happen all the damned time … you can’t stand aside and let this injustice be done in your name.”

Yesterday was just the beginning. This will continue and spread until stop and frisk is stopped! That requires you. Join or be part of the next action – first one neighborhood, then the next. Spread the word. Donate funds.

To be a part of stopping this injustice join the Stop Mass Incarceration Network. Call us at 973.756.7666 or email to stopmassincarceration@ymail.com.

STOP “STOP & FRISK” MEETING – GET ORGANIZED!

SUNDAY OCT. 23, 2:00 pm

ST. MARY’S CHURCH, 126TH ST.

BETW. OLD BROADWAY & AMSTERDAM AVE.

#1 Train to 125th St.

•  •  2 notes

Friday’s civil disobedience and rally were a significant launch of this movement.  One important way to get involved is to make a financial contribution. Thousands of dollars are needed. 

The “Stop Mass Incarceration: We’re Better Than That!” Network is a project of the Alliance for Global Justice, a 501c3 tax-exempt organization.  Donations are tax-deductible. Checks should be made payable to “Alliance for Global Justice” with “Stop Mass Incarceration” on memo line.  Send checks to Stop Mass Incarceration Network c/o P.O. Box 941,Knickerbocker Station, New York NY 10002.

•

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 21, 2011

Contact: Joan Hirsch 917-520-6963; Steve Yip 917-868-6007

DOZENS ARRESTED AT 28^TH PRECINCT IN HARLEM TO STOP “STOP & FRISK”

Cornel West, Professor, Author, Public Intellectual
Carl Dix, Revolutionary Communist Party
Rev. Stephen Phelps, Interim Senior Minister of Riverside Church
Rev. Earl Kooperkamp, Rector of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
Debra Sweet, Director of World Can’t Wait
Rev. Omar Wilks, Unison Pentecostal Church
Prof. Jim Vrettos, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Elaine Brower, Military Mom and World Can’t Wait

According to the New York Civil Liberties Union, 33 were arrested, including Occupy Wall Street protesters

The NYPD’s notorious program of STOP & FRISK  was the target of hundreds of demonstrators who marched from the Harlem State Office Building to Harlem’s 28^th precinct this afternoon. At the station, Cornel West, author and Princeton professor, Carl Dix of the Revolutionary Communist Party, Rev. Stephen Phelps, interim senior minister of Riverside Church, and dozens of others were arrested in an act of non-violence civil disobedience.  Among those arrested and protesting was a large contingent from downtown’s Occupy Wall Street.

Carl Dix said, “We are here today to put our bodies on the line to stop this racist, immoral, illegitimate and unjust ‘new Jim Crow’ from the gateway of stop and frisk to the wholesale mass incarceration of Black and Brown people. We are serious and we will continue until we stop Stop & Frisk.”

Taken up the words of Rev. Phelps of Riverside Church, as arrestees were carried to waiting police vans the crowd chanted, “Stop & Frisk don’t stop the crime, Stop & Frisk IS the crime.”

Following the arrest of the demonstrators at the doorway to the Precinct building, police moved aggressively against a photographer from Democracy Now as he retreated.  Noche, a member of the Peoples Neighborhood Patrol of Harlem, whose stated purpose is to prevent the police from violating the rights of people or brutalizing them under the color of authority, was arrested.

Following the arrests, the crowd took off on a march to the 33^rd Precinct where they were told the arrestees are being held.

STOP & FRISK – The Reality

 According to a New York Civil Liberties Union study, the NYPD is on pace to stop and frisk over 700,000 people in 2011, or more than 1,900 people each day.  More than 85%of those stopped and frisked are Black or Latino, and more than 90% of them were doing nothing wrong when the police stopped them.

On August 3, 2011 a Federal Judge rejected an effort by the City of New York to thwart a lawsuit filed by The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) that challenges the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk policy and practices. In a statement issued earlier this year CCR said that “for many children being stopped by the police on their way home from school has become a normal after school activity and that is a tragedy.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and State Senator Eric Adams called for a federal probe of the policy, saying that it is “emblematic of a police culture that disregarded the civil rights of young black and Hispanic men.”

A Matter of Conscience

A young teacher participating in the civil disobedience tomorrow has written: “ I am doing this for mothers, like my own, who have to raise their sons to be docile and complacent with police injustice, knowing that speaking up only means more trouble… I do this for the youth, like the ones I teach, who are offered no options under this system, treated as criminals the moment they mature, and who have come to see themselves that way. No parent should have to raise their child this way; no child should have to grow up this way.” 

Participants will also attend Saturday’s 2:00 pm rally at Union Square, part of a National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation.

-30-

Endorsed by: Charles J. Alexander, Ph.D, UCLA Division of Undergraduate Education; Afrika Bambaata and the Zulu Nation; Rev. Luis Barrios, John Jay College of Criminal Justice; Herb Boyd, journalist, author, Harlem NY; Eve Ensler, playwright, creator of V-day; Brian Figueroux, Esq.; Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist; Nicholas Heyward, Father of Nicholas Heyward, Jr. who was killed by police; Sikivu Hutchinson, author; IGNITE (Hunter College); Lawrence Lucas, Our Lady of Lourdes RC Church; Cynthia McKinney, former Congressperson; Efia Nwangaza, Malcolm X Center, Greenville, SC; October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression & the Criminalization of a Generation (NY Ctm); Allene Person, mother of Timur Person who was killed by NYPD; Michael Ratner, President Emeritus Center for Constitutional Rights; Bill Quigley, Loyola Law New Orleans; Mark Lewis Taylor, Princeton UniversityTheological Seminary; Sunsara Taylor, writer Revolution Newspaper and World Can’t Wait Advisory Board; Mary Watkins, Ph.D., psychology professor and author, Santa Barbara CA; Clyde Young, revolutionary communist and former prisoner; Juanita Young, mother of Malcolm Ferguson who was killed by NYPD

•  •  1 note

About 30 people, including the civil rights campaigner and Princeton professor Cornel West, were arrested Friday outside a police station in Harlem during a protest of the police practice known as stop-and-frisk.

Continue Reading at The New York Times

•  •  1 note

Occupy Wall Street headed to Harlem Friday afternoon in a solidarity march that ended with the arrests of a few dozen protesters including Princeton professor Cornel West — just days after his arrest in Washington, D.C., at another demonstration.

Continue Reading at Salon

•

Cornel West bagged his second arrest of the week today, as the Princeton professor and more than two dozen engaged in civil disobedience at a Harlem rally against the NYPD’s stop and frisk tactics.

•  •  1 note

Noted professor and political and civil rights activist Cornel West was arrested around 2:30 pm ET this afternoon in New York City while protesting with members of the Occupy Wall Street movement in front of a local police precinct.

Dr. West was among those arrested shortly ago in New York City during an act of civil disobedience in Harlem. An Occupy Wall Street legal observer with the National Lawyers Guild told RT’s Lucy Kafanov that around 30 demonstrators in all were arrested, including Revolutionary Communist Party spokesperson Carl Dix.

Continue Reading at Russia Today

•