Street Corner Speak-out/Press Conference Denounces NYPD Assault
June 16, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
From a reader:
Friday, June 13—About 80 people gathered at a busy Harlem intersection to denounce and condemn the massive NYPD assault against the Grant and Manhattanville housing projects and Manhattan Ave. buildings. At the speak-out/press conference were people from the projects, including people whose homes were invaded by the police as well as anti-mass incarceration activists, revolutionaries, and others supporting them. A huge rainstorm started as the press arrived, and people bunched in around news cameras under the eaves of the Harlem State Office Building.
Photo: Special to Revolution
The authorities are finding that their military assault, which Mayor Bill de Blasio and others have been portraying as universally welcomed by the residents, is being unexpectedly challenged. Even before the speak-out, a journalist exposing the police was featured on an NPR station morning talk show, and victims of the assault had called in to pour out their anger. The show aroused much controversy, and the host put the Manhattan DA on the air the next day to defend the operation, with no call-in.
At the speak-out, women from the projects angrily waved a hate piece that had appeared that morning in the New York Daily News titled "Harlem Kids Proudly Aligning With Violent Gangs," with a photo of young kids playing basketball, and with text saying "meet the gangbangers of tomorrow" and blaming the mothers for not "taking personal responsibility" and abandoning the kids to the "gangs." (Along with this, the Daily News ran a small box about the speak-out/press conference, with a quote from a member of the NYC Revolution Club.)
In front of TV cameras and some print media, residents described the nightmare of violence and deliberate degradation by the police that had left those affected deeply traumatized. And ANGRY. One woman recounted a horrific ordeal that lasted for hours—how the sounds and terrifying scenes reverberate in her mind. Her teenage daughter has not been able to sleep since she awoke to her bedroom door being kicked in, men with guns and shields sticking a gun and a flashlight in her face, and shouting "get up!" Then they slammed her face-down on the floor and handcuffed her. She only had on a bra and panties, and the cops would not allow her to dress until much later. All the while, she was thinking, "Why is this happening? Where is my brother?"
The woman said she awoke to the sight of a gun stuck at her three-month-old baby's head. Her partner tried to shield the baby with his body, the cops pulling him from the bed by his legs while they screamed: "Get on the ground! Get on the ground! Freeze! Freeze! Police!" Both the woman and her partner were handcuffed, and the baby was taken away screaming. The woman described the way the cops laughed and high-fived, snooped around her daughter's room asking invasive questions, and talked about what they would eat for lunch. They poured garbage on her son's bed, ripped out the couch, tore up the bathroom. Upon leaving, the cops told them to "have a nice day." When she went to the precinct to complain about not being shown a search warrant, she was told, "You're watching too much TV ... We don't have to show you a search warrant. We can do this."
After the press conference, a march took off in the rain to a nearby site where the new police commander of one of the precincts that had taken part in the raid was being celebrated. Entering guests were greeted by loud chants by parents and others, as they stood together. Carl Dix from the Revolutionary Communist Party and Noche Diaz from the NYC Revolution Club spoke on the steps of the building, with a banner as a backdrop that said "Grant Houses, Manhattanville, Manhattan Ave. Together against Police Assault on Black and Latino People, especially our Youth! No More!" One woman called guests out by name as they entered the building and yelled at them: "You should be ashamed! Don't you know what these mothers have been through?"
After the march returned to the Harlem State Office Building, more righteous fury at the police burst forth as mothers and grandmothers, sisters and aunts of the imprisoned young men raged against the police and vowed that the authorities would not get away with this attack.
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