A 16th birthday party for a local teen came to a heated end at the National Black Theater in Harlem when a mother was thrown to the ground and arrested while surrounding teenagers were harassed and physically assaulted by the NYPD. See the video on Fox News.
Related: Fox [video] :: Raw footage (see related video link in sidebar of MyFox) or on YouTube
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Posted in: Community
Divine1906
July 5, 2007
What #1 and some others aren’t seeing here is that there are different sets of rules for different people when it comes to being handled by the cops. Which is why many folks, while they want cops fighting crime, are very, very ambivalent about embracing the police generally.
Let’s be honest. What do you think would have happened to a Black person if they had come upon this scene and attempted to intervene by speaking to the cops like #1 did?
Case closed.
Harlem Girl
July 4, 2007
“However I once saw on a Harlem St. a uniformed cop pushing & shoving a teen or pre-teen against a brick wall right in front of about a dozen other kids. I stepped in and told the cop to stop it, if an arrest is warranted, arrest the kid, but don’t haze, batter, and abuse the kid. The cop told me to mind my own business….”
Unfortunately this behavior by the cops is all too common.
I realized that the cops were not my firends, for the first time, when I was a teenager. A cop literally pulled a gun on a group of teenagers on a train because he could not find a kid who had taken someone’s chain and ran through a train car.
The cop literally pulled his gun and held it to the face of a couple of innocent kids on a train. He also cursed and threatened the kids.
I grew up in Harlem and when I was a kid, it was not uncommon for the cops to just walk over to a group of guys hanging out, draw their guns, make most of them lie on the ground while they went through the pockets of others.
I’m talking about teenagers just standing around. Not doing anything illegal.
I learned as an adult that my brother had been given rules by my parents about how to behave if ever approached by the cops.
Sad.
Anonymous
July 4, 2007
Actually the whole unedited video is on the Fox website! The YouTube video was either sold to Fox or more than likely the police pulled it for evidence. Who cares what they SAID…Cops are SUPPOSED to be professionals and nothing said to them justifies their actions. Nothing. Their lives were not in danger. People were just standing around watching, not wilding out. They cops were the ones out of control. It probably got out of hand because one the nervous new neighbors called the cops for a QOL issue. Just a word to the wise…Black and Latino folks talk loud and we also yell at our kids. Listen to what is happening before you call the cops. This whole situation never had to happened.
New Anon
July 4, 2007
I want to know what the police say about this video and the incident. It is shocking. I wish the video taker would post the whole, unedited thing so we could see how it possibly could have gotten so out of hand.
New Anon
July 4, 2007
I want to know what the police say about this video. This video is shocking. I wish that the video taker would post the whole thing, so we could see more about how it could have possibly gotten that way.
Harlem Girl
July 4, 2007
“The state of Fox journalism, no one bothers to contact the Police and determine what the charges are for the first, and second arrest. How do you conduct a TV report like this while failing to define the charges? We have no idea what the kid did to get arrested, I assume the mother got arrested for assault or the like when she protested the arrest of her kid, who knows, uninvestigated, it’s a crap shoot. ”
It wouldn’t matter if someone committed murder in the middle of the party, there is no justification for the type of behavior by the police.
The story was not about the initial arrest, but about the police behavior. There was no need to discuss the initial arrests.
Peace
July 3, 2007
I will just ignore the first part of your comment because, well, it was so uncalled for! But watching this video broke my heart, especially the unedited video. Why? For one thing, the police were completely out of line. Short of pulling a weapon, there was no reason for the officers to treat those children (yes they are children) the way they did. That one little boy was about to break down in tears and he obviously did NOTHING to warrant being pushed or slammed head first into that gate. I almost broke into tears when I saw that. I pray that this isn’t a signal of our “new” Harlem. We all want a better life but this is not the way to get it. Those officers want respect but when are they doing community outreach. When I was a kid we respected cops because we had a positive relationship with them. I don’t see that here in Harlem. That was someone’s child who did nothing to warrant that abuse. How do you think that child will view the police from now on after that incident. It hurt him and it hurt me.
Anonymous
July 3, 2007
If only these cops would do the same to the Mt Morris Park drummers. The state of Fox journalism, no one bothers to contact the Police and determine what the charges are for the first, and second arrest. How do you conduct a TV report like this while failing to define the charges? We have no idea what the kid did to get arrested, I assume the mother got arrested for assault or the like when she protested the arrest of her kid, who knows, uninvestigated, it’s a crap shoot.
However I once saw on a Harlem St. a uniformed cop pushing & shoving a teen or pre-teen against a brick wall right in front of about a dozen other kids. I stepped in and told the cop to stop it, if an arrest is warranted, arrest the kid, but don’t haze, batter, and abuse the kid. The cop told me to mind my own business, I told the cop, “I’m trying to save your life, all your doing is making an image imprint in the eyes and minds of these kids and giving them reason to hate you, if not one day pop you with a gun”. The cop was silent.
Some of those officers in that video should be suspended without pay and retrained. Cops have to be professionals, not thugs. Always amusing how the cops want it both ways. They hate the “don’t snitch” campaign in the streets, but have their own “don’t snitch”, it’s called the blue wall of silence. Cops need to snitch on their fellow cops who are thugs.