End Harassment of Bushwick Youth

Regular New York readers will remember the post we ran last summer about a group of young people in Bushwick, Brooklyn who were rounded up and detained by police while on their way to a friend’s wake. The story seemed to unfold as a police overreaction to a large group of youth moving through the streets of a community where there were worries about gang violence.

While cops involved may have wished they’d immediately figured out the mistake and let the young people continue on to pay their respects, their bosses and the Brooklyn DA had a story and were sticking to it. The kids were brought in, were kept in custody despite the intervention of teachers and parents, and were accused without evidence of stomping on cars and being generally threatening.

In response, a number of the students involved started a campaign to fight for their own defense (see SCARP’s blog) and more generally for those subject to racial profiling, police brutality, and community violence in general. Their campaign caught the attention of New York public radio talk show hosts and NY Times columnist Bob Herbert, among others. There were lots of protests against their mistreatment and the stonewalling of the Brooklyn DA’s office and police headquarters.

Since then, the Brooklyn DA, Charles Hynes, offered community service as a “deal” for the students, instead of entirely dropping the charges against all involved, a deal that every student passed on. Instead, the courts and individual prosecutors have dropped charges as most of the students’ cases have come to court. The time and expense of court appearances have taken a toll on the families involved, but the DA, while winning no cases, has continued through the list of defendants one by one.

This kind of abuse of prosecutorial discretion, coupled with a lack of any apology from the NYPD, shows the community a lack of respect that needs to be addressed. After 22 of the 32 cases involved have been dismissed, the remaining 10 need to be dismissed without the need of more expense and time wasted in the courts and by the families of the defendants. The Bushwick community and the youth involved are also due an apology by Commissioner Kelly for the mistakes made by the NYPD— and DA Hynes needs to join him in a public statement.

For anyone interested in helping the families involved, a defense fund is being set up and can be contacted at:

Sankofa Community Empowerment, Inc.
P.O.Box 160616
Brooklyn, NY 11216

H/t to Bob Herbert in today’s NY Times