"Breaking 'Broken Windows' Town Hall Meeting” Exposes Criminal Policing Strategy

December 29, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

"Broken Windows" is the policing strategy developed three decades ago and implemented by Bill Bratton starting in 1990 when he was chief of the New York City Transit Police Department under Mayor David Dinkins, and then as the police commissioner under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Under the Broken Windows doctrine, a massive police force harasses, beats, arrests and sometimes kills people, especially in the communities of the oppressed, for the smallest of infractions, such as selling loose cigarettes, drinking beer on the street, truancy, jumping a subway turnstile, and so on—activities that are legally considered "violations," not crimes, and which should result in a warning or a ticket at most. The justification for Broken Windows is that by going after small offenses, serious crimes will be prevented. The reality is that this is a doctrine for police to terrorize people in their neighborhoods, especially the neighborhoods of oppressed people, acting like an occupying army in which everyone is "the enemy."

When New York City elected its new, supposedly progressive mayor, Bill de Blasio, in 2013, one of his first acts was to appoint Bratton again as head of the NYPD, and de Blasio has continued to uphold the Broken Windows policing policy even after the chokehold death of Eric Garner for supposedly selling loose cigarettes.

The following is from a report from readers about the “Breaking ‘Broken Windows’ Town Hall Meeting" in Brooklyn, NY, which brings to life the brutal toll Broken Windows is taking on the lives, spirits, people and communities that have been targeted for it.

On December 21, over a hundred people gathered at St. Luke & St. Matthew Church in Brooklyn for a “Breaking ‘Broken Windows’Town Hall Meeting.”

Almost 20 speakers from different communities rose to denounce Broken Windows, and police brutality in all forms, telling chilling and often heartbreaking stories of the way in which human lives are twisted, damaged and stolen. These are just a few of the stories that we heard:

• Near the start of the meeting a video was shown of a young Black man smoking a cigarette on a street corner. He flicks his ashes on the ground, and more quickly than you can imagine, seven cops swarm him, bring him to the ground and arrest him.
• A Latino man from the activist organization El Grito de Sunset Park talked about an incident (caught on video) in which a Latina, seven-months pregnant, was tackled by police for supposedly vending without a license, and another woman who protested was hurled bodily into the street.
• A young Mexicana woman from Queens Neighborhood United, who came to the U.S. at four and settled in Jackson Heights, an area with many immigrants and a large LGBT community, told of her gradual awakening to the reality of Broken Windows. She was concerned about helping her neighborhood and heard that a "Business Improvement District" was being established in the heart of it. At first she thought "that sound's great!"
  But on the ground it meant harassing the people in the community and driving them out. She said "the police would take street vendors—mothers trying to feed their kids—steal their food and throw them in vans... They harass LGBT people—if they find a gay person with one condom on them they arrest them as sex workers... They say it doesn't 'look good,' but for who?" Tons of violations were issued for all these things and she also told how "Broken Windows deports—if you have three misdemeanors you are not eligible for the new programs that temporarily legalize status."
• A man who had worked at New York City's "311" center—the number people call for non-emergency requests for assistance—exposed the police lie that their Broken Windows harassment is just a response to community complaints. He said, "We were inundated with calls from people whose landlords were not providing them with heat, people with desperation in their voices holding babies in their arms, who would call back day after day because nothing was done. An immigrant woman being harassed on the job and then having her pay withheld. A homeless man in the winter, looking desperately for someplace warm to sleep. Often we would get calls from people who said they hadn't eaten for several days, looking for a meal. Elderly depressed people considering suicide...None of these was considered an 'emergency' requiring immediate intervention by the authorities. But people selling loose cigarettes, holding parties, subway dancers—those are considered emergencies that the police have to deal with immediately!"
• The most wrenching moments came from family members of people murdered by the police. Akai Gurley's aunt—Akai was the young man killed in November in a Brooklyn project just for stepping through a door into a dimly lit stairwell—told how she struggled to come to the meeting after working all day in Manhattan because "Enough is enough." She said that "how the police are trained is to see us as targets, male and female." She described her sister's indescribable pain and loss and said, "My nephew was minding his own business. The Lord I serve says that 'vengeance is mine,' so I don't worry about that, but I want justice."
• Juanita Young and Nicholas Heyward Sr. both active with Parents Against Police Brutality and the October 22nd Coalition, told heart-breaking and enraging stories about losing their sons to police murder. Juanita's son Malcolm Ferguson was killed by an NYPD cop in 2000. Nicholas's son, 13-year-old Nicholas Heyward Jr., was killed in a housing project stairwell by a cop in 1994 as he played with a toy gun.

All of these stories and many more washed over the crowd, and often there were cries of sympathy, support, and recognition—there were certainly many more untold stories in the audience. And everyone walked away with a deepened sense and commitment to continue the movement to stop police brutality and murder until these outrages and horrors come to an end.

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