This is important.<\/p>\n
A NYT article yesterday (by Joseph Goldstein), about the initial hearings in federal court for the lawsuit filed against the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk policy, started with a personal story. I am so apoplectic that although I’m linking you to the whole story<\/a>, I’m giving you the beginning here. Read it and howl:<\/p>\n Charles E. Bradley stood outside his fianc\u00e9e’s fifth-floor apartment at about 5 p.m., the designated time, and began drumming on the door, he testified Tuesday, re-creating the sound in Federal District Court in Manhattan, his knuckles rat-a-tatting on the witness stand. She did not respond, he said, and so after waiting a moment\u00a0\u2014 she is deaf in one ear\u00a0\u2014 he left.<\/em><\/p>\n Mr. Bradley, who is in his early 50s, said he reached the sidewalk on that May evening last year and looked up toward his fianc\u00e9e’s window. “We were expecting to get together,” he said. “Where is she?”<\/em><\/p>\n It was then that a police van pulled up, he said, and within moments an office was questioning Mr. Bradley and searching his pockets.<\/em><\/p>\n “I’m here to see my young lady,” Mr. Bradley said he explained to the officer, also adding that he worked as as security guard.<\/em><\/p>\n In short order, Mr. Bradley was arrested on trespassing charges.<\/em><\/p>\n We New Yorkers are living in a police state. And anybody who knows only a bit about Germany in the 1930s understands this.<\/p>\n I don’t give a fuck about Ray Kelly’s mealy-mouthed justifications for this policy. I trust that the federal court, in the person of Judge Shira Scheindlin, will smack him and Corporate Counsel, the City’s law firm, in the face and end this screaming abuse of our Constitution once and for all.<\/p>\n Hearing on Trespassing Arrests Under Stop-and-Frisk Policy Continues – NYTimes.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is important. A NYT article yesterday (by Joseph Goldstein), about the initial hearings in federal court for the lawsuit filed against the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk policy, started with a personal story. I am so apoplectic that although I’m linking you … Continue reading