MRNY Confronts NYPD’s Discriminatory Stop & Frisk Policing [Video]

June 13, 2012

By Make the Road New York Staff / Make the Road New York

MRNY members are elevating the citywide struggle to end the NYPD’s harmful and discriminatory Stop & Frisk policies.

This week, one of MRNY’s youth members Tyquan is telling his story in a video New York Times exclusive. A young, African-American man from Bushwick, Brooklyn, Tyquan is one of the hundreds of thousands of people who are stopped and frisked every year by the NYPD. Even though black and Latino men between the ages of 14 and 24 account for only 4.7 percent of the NYC’s population, they accounted for 41 percent of the NYPD’s 685,724 stops last year. As a teenager, Tyquan recounts being stopped as many 4 to 5 times per month.

Racial profiling is illegal, but, as Tyquan says in his video, “When you’re young and you’re black—no matter how you look—you fit the description.

Click to watch video on the NY Times website

A recent report by the NYCLU confirmed what MRNY members have been experiencing for years, that—rather than minimizing guns and violence on NYC’s streets—aggressive Stop & Frisk policing has resulted in racial profiling and violation of our communities’ civil rights. By sowing deep mistrust between police officers and the communities they are supposed to protect, discriminatory Stop & Frisk policing makes community members feel less protected and, consequently, less likely to report real crimes.

Since 2007, MRNY youth members have been doing extensive outreach, educating their peers and adults on policing and civil rights. In 2010, our young people successfully advocated for the Student Safety Act, which has established transparency on policing in NYC schools. Youth members have also organized hundreds of Know-Your-Rights workshops, painted informational murals in Brooklyn and Queens and led dozens of community events to monitor police activities in areas with high rates of Stop & Frisk.

MRNY members are also working to confront aggressive, discriminatory police treatment of LGBTQ New Yorkers. In Queens, transgender community members report frequent harassment by police. Kimberly Dukenso, a transgender woman, was arrested and held for 48 hours by the police as part of a round-up of transgender women in JacksonHeights after a night out with friends. "They arrest us because they assume that we are all engaged in sex work. That is homophobic and makes me not want to leave my home at night,” she said. “It has to stop."

Last October, MRNY members held a massive march across the Brooklyn Bridge to decry discriminatory policing, helping to galvanizing the citywide movement and garnering major support for reform in the City government.

This Sunday, Father’s Day, join MRNY and thousands of other New Yorkers for a silent march to protest the criminalization and mistreatment of our communities. More than four million people have been stopped under the Bloomberg Administration, and yet no gun was retrieved in 99.9 percent of stops last year. Together, we will march to denounce aggressive, discriminatory Stop & Frisk policing. We will march for the safety and dignity of all New Yorkers.

Silent March
Father’s Day, Sunday, June 18, Manhattan
Meet at 110th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard
(3, A, B, C, 4 or 6 Trains to 110^th Street)

For more info on the march, visit: http://silentmarchnyc.org