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NY Couple On "Wanted" Poster For Filming Police
Hugh Pickens writes "Ben Fractenberg and Jeff Mays write that the NYPD has created a 'wanted' poster for a Harlem couple who film cops conducting stop-and-frisks and post the videos on YouTube — branding them 'professional agitators' who portray cops in a bad light and listing their home address. The flyer featuring side-by-side mugshots of Matthew Swaye and Christina Gonzalez and the couple's home address was taped to a podium outside a public hearing room in the 30th Precinct house and warns officers to be on guard against them. The couple has filmed officers stopping and frisking and arresting young people of color in Harlem and around New York City, which they post on Gonzalez's YouTube account. They said their actions are legal. 'There have been times when it's gotten combative. There have been times when they [police officers] have videoed Christina,' says Swaye. 'But if we were breaking the law they would have arrested us.' Swaye was part of a group of advocates including Cornel West who were detained at the 28th Precinct in Harlem in October for protesting the stop-and-frisk policy which Mayor Bloomberg strongly defends. "
> Seriously, why would the police care if the police are
> doing nothing wrong?
Guilty conscience.
> Which brings me to a question: How is "stop and
> frisk" not a violation of rights? It seems to be
> CLEARLY a violation of the 4th and perhaps even
> the 5th.
I don't get it, either. It's so obvious a violation of due process and flagrant bigotry that it should never have been proposed. Yet, they're doing it; they've been doing it since at least 2004; they're amassing a database containing information on those people who have been subject to stop-and-frisk; they're using the database for racial profiling and harassment (some people have been stalked by the police, stopped and frisked dozens of times); and nobody is stopping them.
The NY ACLU is only suing them over the database. Not the practice.
The law spells out very specific circumstances for a stop and pat-down.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_stop
The police are ignoring the law.
This is the sort of thing that East coasters ridicule Arizona for, but it's going on right here.
A true WTF.
US has lower individual tax rates, and higher corporate tax rates.
That is gross misinformation, even if technically true.
US may have high corporate tax rates on the books, but the effective tax rate is about 13.4% which is much closer to the bottom on the world scale.
This is in no way a Terry stop, which requires reasonable suspicion, these are pseudo-random (read: Profiled) searches. Random stops are not allowed under the constitution. I do not care if they worked so well they effectively eradicated all violent crime they are illegal, immoral and utterly contrary to liberty. One of the great things about this constitution is that without amendment it does not allow us to surrender our liberty even if a majority wanted to. This is by far it's most important function.