by Debra Sweet

Today in Queens Criminal Court, there was first of all a battle over how the jury would be charged.  The prosecutor keeps whining that he didn't know he had to actually provide evidence to the jury on how the 103rd Precinct was disrupted during the protest a year ago.  He wanted the jury to be told they didn't have to find that any specific aspect of the functioning of the precinct had to have been obstructed to find Carl, Jamel, Morgan and Bob guilty of Obstruction of Government Administration.

They are charged with two counts, and each could carry a year at Rikers.  Of course the jury's not allowed to know that.

Defense counsel argued strongly against that charge to the jury, and won language that puts more burden on the prosecution to have proven something was disrupted.  Their problem is they didn't bring out any such evidence, save for one cop who claimed that he was 1 to 5 minutes late going into the building because there was a crowd protesting outside the door of the precinct.  And he admitted he started his shift on time after roll call.

All three defense attorneys, and the prosecutor gave closing summations today.  One by one, the defense brought out the lack of evidence from the prosecution, which has the burden of proving each element of each count beyond a reasonable doubt.  Prosecution said in pre-trial motions they would show that because of the protest, 9-11 calls went unanswered, and prisoners couldn't be transferred.  They presented no such testimony or evidence; in fact the Commander of the precinct stated to the jury that none of the normal business of the precinct was disrupted during the 7 minutes the protesters were in front of the door.  Defense was relentless in reminding the jury that the obstruction of the precinct was the NYPD's own doing.

Our attorneys, Meg Maurus, Tom Hillgardner and Marty Stolar, highlighted the intent of the protesters, as Jamel, Morgan and Carl testified Tuesday, to deliver a political message against NYPD stop-and-frisk right to the place where the policy is centered.  Marty Stolar was able to get into his argument the fact that the 103rd had the eighth highest number of stop-and-frisks in the city last year...and that's where the police who killed Sean Bell are from. 

After their summations, the prosecutor mainly relied on his index finger, pointing at "THESE FOUR MEN" repeatedly, as protesters who had "gone too far" and broken the law by refusing to leave the front of the precinct.  Since he had no evidence to call forth, he asserted this over and over, and for variety, near the end of this speech, raised his voice and told the jury, "You see how they acted, the attorneys and the defendants treated this trial as ONE BIG JOKE!" 

To the contrary, the defendants testified that they didn't plan to be arrested that day, but are always prepared to be arrested at a political protest, especially when protesting the NYPD.  It was inspiring to hear our people speak, to challenge the prosecutor, and the judge in the process of fighting what Tom Hillgardner called "a garbage case for which no one should go to jail."

Thursday morning at 10:00 am, the jury will be charged.  We hope for a verdict of not guilty on all counts.
Queens Criminal Court  125-

Friends,

We've weathered a devastating hurricane, a sudden snowstorm, and an election frenzy, yet it still remains an priority for this system to pour its resources into prosecuting people who protested against the stop and frisk policy-- a policy that is at the leading edge of brutality and repression on youth of color, and a pipeline to the penal system.  

Now going into a third week, the proceedings of the trial in which I am facing charges up to one year in jail, have been wrought with controversy.   For starters, we have been delayed for several days because of weather-related recesses on two occasions.  Two weeks ago, a juror was re-voidired after wanting to wear 'her Obama shirt' which a court officer thought indicated she might be sympathetic with our goals; and last Monday, that same juror was arrested while exiting the courthouse after refusing to sign a returned property slip for a ziploc bag that didn't contain her items.  After hearing the story of the outrageous arrest of a fellow juror, two jurors were removed because they couldn't remained unbiased.  We got back to at court yesterday morning, November 13th, and were finally able to present our case, and testify from the witness stand. We hope to see a verdict by the end of the week.

During this nodal point in the battle against stop and frisk and mass incarceration, there is a great need to continue to elevate around this front: Please continue to share this information with folks in your circle, and push this story to media outlets.  Lend your weight and voice to the effort--call in radio stations and news stations.   Sign the resolution, and help to arrange coverage of the ongoing proceedings. Tweet, Facebook, blog or Instagram about the trial, especially as we get close to rendering a verdict.   

We are mobilizing people to pack the courtroom this week -- when the defense is finally set to present our case,--and get the word out on all fronts that the case is on this week. Come out today, Wednesday November 14th to hear summations and closing arguments.  Stick around while the jury deliberates on Thursday November 15th, and be ready to mobilize as the verdict comes down. Come stand with us and put Stop and Frisk on trial! 

Pack the Courtroom for Stop and Frisk Freedom Fighters!
Wednesday November 14th & Thursday November 15th
Queens Criminal Court, Room JP1
125-01 Queens Boulevard, Kew Gardens Queens

Jamel Mims

An important day in court today.  The prosecution rested its case, and despite the fact that their witnesses had admitted on the witness stand that no (That's right, zero!) police functions had been obstructed by the demonstration last Nov at the 103rd precinct, the judge refused to dismiss the charges.  He made a big deal about the possibility that the demonstration may have made them hold their roll call 15 minutes late, even tho' it had been shown that this precinct often holds its roll calls late.
 
Then 3 of the defendants, myself, Jamel and Morgan, testified.  Thru our testimony the jurors heard about what we had done--delivered a message of opposition to the illegitimate NYPD policy of Stop & Frisk, and as much as we could get out, why we did it.  I say as much as we could get out because the judge and the prosecutors kept repeating their mantra, "This isn't about Stop & Frisk."  Everytime any of us said anything about Stop & Frisk, the prosecution objected, and the judge upheld their objections.  It got so bad that at one point as I began to answer a question that I knew was going to be objected to, I told the prosecutor she might want to stand up as I was answering this one so she'd be ready to object.
 
The jurors also got a sense of the diversity of the New Freedom Fighters who put their bodies on the line to stop "Stop & Frisk."  Only 4 of us were defendants in this trial, but the jury got a sense of who we were--People of different races; old and young; people who face being Stopped & Frisked and people who know they won't be stopped but don't want to live in a society where people get mistreated like this because of the color of their skin.
 
We'll pick up tomorrow with a final defense witness and then go to discussion over what instructions the judge will give to the jury about how to apply the law in this case.  Then we'll have the closing statements from the prosecution and from the 3 defense lawyers.  And then the case will be in the hands of the jury.
 
Still important to spread the word on this outrageous prosecution via e mail, twitter and Facebook--nothing less than the ability and right to stand up and say NO MORE to Stop & Frisk is on trial here.  Come out to the court in Queens on Weds, Nov 14th.
 
We're talking about/planning to do a rally on the day after the verdict--keep your eyes open for details on this one.

Tuesday the prosecution rested in the second trial of New Freedom Fighters.  The defense team argued that the judge put aside the two counts of Obstruction of Government Administration, and one of Disorderly Conduct.

The judge, not surprisingly to us, said no.  It's up to the jury to decide if the defendants, Carl Dix, Jamel Mims, Morgan Rhodewalt and Robert Parsons, are guilty of creating a situation where, theoretically, persons who were not present could have been deterred from entering the 103rd Precinct last November 19 because of a mass protest at the door.  they have to decide whether, as the prosecutors argue, delay of a roll call that day  -- which happens regularly, according to precinct records, constitutes "obstruction" of business at the precinct.

Finally, the jury and others in the courtroom got to meet the defendants as three of them testified. Restricted by the prosecution's objections every time the words "stop-and-frisk" were mentioned, and hemmed in by the judge sustaining those objections, they struggled to convey why they were protesting.  Here's a little flavor:

Jamel Mims, hip-hop pedagogue, Mandarin teacher, Fulbright Scholar, video and visual artist...and even with all those accomplishments, he has to think when he's out each day that he could be arrested at any time, whether he's protesting, or not.  Morgan Rhodewalt, Quaker, landscape designer, graduate of Marlboro College in Vermont, who found the mission to STOP stop-and-frisk while spending weekends with Occupy Wall Street, and wanted to be active in something that really affected the people of the city he was visiting.  Carl Dix, who along with Cornel West thought up and called for the campaign of non-violent civil disobedience aimed at letting the public know there are people putting their bodies on the line to end the practice because it's a pipeline to epidemic mass incarceration.

You can read more from them on these pages, and you can support them in court Wednesday, or donate to their legal defense fund here.

The prosecutors tried to get these brothers to admit that they intended to shut down the 103rd Precinct, and cause annoyance and alarm to the public.  The Judge asked Jamel if he had thought about the consequences for the public in his action of standing in front of the precinct doors.  "Yes," Jamel said, looking right at the judge, "We considered the effect this outrageous and egregious policy has on the people, and we took action to stop it, for them."

Well, right on to that.  Stay tuned.  The jury probably will get the case Wednesday, after closing arguments, and complicated jury instructions.

by James Vrettos,  originally published in Tikkun

There are a series of relatively unpublicized trials presently going on this month in New York City that seem to represent attempts to settle civil disobedience efforts and nonviolent protests that challenged the New York Police Department’s increasingly unpopular stop-and-frisk policies and the way a whole generation of young people of color is being condemned to lives of criminalization, marginalization, brutality and the spirit-crushing, human-wasting confinement of the largest prison system in the world.

These trials involve Carl Dix who, along with Union Theological Seminary professor Cornel West, was the co-initiator of the “Stop Stop-and-Frisk” protests. He and several other activists in the movement are facing charges of disorderly conduct and obstruction of governmental administration which could result in two to four-plus years of jail time for them.

Stop and frisk practices have been increasingly put on the defensive by academic research which has shown the racist nature of the policy—85 percent of those stopped and frisked are Black and Hispanic and police are significantly more likely to use force when they stop them than when they stop whites. Most academic scholars concerned with the issue have conclusively argued that the proportion of gun seizures to stops has fallen sharply and the policy has not been a major factor behind lowered crime rates.

Furthermore, the policy has been stymied by various lawsuits including the granting of a federal class-action status by a federal judge, discussion of the creation of an Inspector General’s Office to monitor various police policies and practices—including stop and frisk, and the Bronx district attorney’s office decision to no longer prosecute people who were stopped at public housing projects and arrested for trespassing unless the arresting officer is interviewed.

Equally damaging has been the exposing of “policing by the numbers” management policy—a code for quotas in which crimes are being downgraded and police commanders are pitted against one another to match or exceed previous figures. Religious leaders, cultural figures, and politicians have been vigorously speaking out against the political and spiritual immorality of the practice as well.

The mayor and police commissioner seem to be fighting back and using these trials as an opportunity to punish these activists for questioning and challenging the policy. On the other hand, these trials potentially have the power to raise public consciousness about the New York City criminal justice system, which is increasingly based on a fear-based, surveillance-directed policing system. There is also the possibility that these trials could help formulate an alternative narrative which communicates the linkages of that system to the larger political, economic, and spiritual ethos of the culture in what West has warned are the “giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism” identified by Martin Luther King Jr. a year before his death.

For this alternative narrative to become viable and the links understood it should be recognized first that the American criminal justice system has generally not seen itself as an ideologically driven, politically class-based vehicle through which collective justice and punishment is meted out. Nor are attempts to change or resist the “system” by individuals or groups alike seen as part of a larger, justified “political or cultural social movement” designed to redress economic, political, racial, and/or moral grievances.

Instead our criminal justice system has been largely rooted in a tri-part philosophical base of science and the scientific method, classical criminology and deterrence, and a Judaic/Christian religious historical tradition. This has largely led to seeing the “problem” of crime as an individual or group “failing” and the solution as rooted in a trust of scientific, technocratic expertise, and policy manifested by established authority and the police.

Struggles to politically transform or question the system by ordinary individuals or protesting groups are seen as an invitation to chaos, unjustified questioning of legitimate and expert authority. Indeed, these struggles are seen as attempts to recklessly change a finely tuned mechanism that is allegedly working well and soundly rooted in tradition, scientific research, and moral fairness agreed to by general consensus in a free and open democracy.

It has become clear that we need a dialogue that is true to our democratic roots. We need more community participation to solve our common fears and needs for justice and security. It is this common humanity that should unite us, and the realization from those in power that they gain their mandate from ordinary people in those communities. When that is understood and that conversation begins, the hurt and violence of the system can begin to decrease on all sides.

This alternative narrative from the Judaic/Christian and secular American prophetic and progressive tradition of Martin Luther King Jr., Eugene Debs, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Dorothy Day, George McGovern, Pete Seeger, Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer and countless other Americans—one that speaks truth to power—would focus on our common humanity and is capable of understanding the hurt in those communities as well as the abuse and exploitation of the police.

To deny that race and class do not matter in contemporary America and its criminal justice system is to deny the most obvious political, scientific, and moral reality of our society. To say that you are the president of the country (or the mayor, or the police chief of all the people of New York City) and then to carry out the political and economic policies that fundamentally benefit the interests of the 1 percent of the city or to promote criminal justice policies that overwhelmingly impact the city’s poorest communities of color is to deny the “political” nature of crime and the possible response to it—including political resistance to those policies and attempts to change them through broad-based nonviolent political and social movements.

The activists now on trial in New York have educated us to the class and racial nature of policies like stop-and-frisk—policies which are now hotly contested in the city and in the courts. In that sense, they have helped us understand a system that has taken our common humanity away from us all. They have furthered the sort of Judaic/Christian/secular narrative we need to have to help bring about the common healing and public safety we all desperately need and want. These freedom fighters need to be supported. Their charges need to be dropped. And the policy of stop-and-frisk needs to end (not be reformed) so that this more honest “political and spiritual” conversation can go forward.

James S. Vrettos has taught sociology, criminology, and criminal justice at John Jay College–City University of New York for twenty years. He coauthored the critically acclaimed text The Elementary Forms of Statistical Reason and has facilitated New York City's Tikkun Community organizing group. Professor James Vrettos was involved in an Oct. 21, 2011, Harlem civil disobedience action and subsequent trial protesting stop-and-frisk polices.

Friends,

The trial of the 4 Stop & Frisk Freedom Fighters in Queens; myself, Jamel Mims, Morgan Rhodewalt and Robert Parsons; will resume on Tuesday, Nov 13.  It has been a wild ride.  Thru almost 3 weeks in court, we’ve had 1 juror arrested in the court building and another dismissed because she was horrified to hear that a fellow juror had been arrested.  The trial has been postponed twice due to extreme weather.

The prosecution has almost finished putting on its case.  They have yet to put on ANY evidence that ANY police activity was obstructed or that ANY members of the public were denied access to the precinct by the protest last Nov 19.  I’m not exaggerating here.  Our attorneys walked the commander of the precinct thru everything he said his precinct did.  They asked him if any of those functions hadn’t happened because of the protest, and he said no.  (His exact words were, “Not to my knowledge.”)  They also got him to admit that he had created a frozen zone around the precinct to which no one was to be admitted without the permission of the police, and that NO members of the public asked to be admitted during our protest.  Yet the 4 of us are facing a year in prison for Obstructing Governmental Administration and Disorderly Conduct.

This underscores what the Stop Mass Incarceration Network (SMIN) has been saying since this trial began: “…what is being put on trial here is nothing less than the ability and right to stand up and say NO MORE to the racist policy of Stop & Frisk.”

It is important that, when the trial resumes on Tuesday, there are many supporters of the Stop & Frisk Freedom Fighters in the court and that many, many people are paying attention to what happens in this case.  The defendants will begin testifying on Tuesday.  We will speak to why we were willing to risk arrest to protest Stop & Frisk, and thru this we will be putting Stop & Frisk on trial.  I am writing to ask you to do all you can to help shine a spotlight on this outrageous prosecution.

• Spread the word on this case.by sending this message, linking to our trial blog, posting on Facebook and Tweeting about it.
• Come to Queens Criminal Court 9:30 am Tuesday.  (Take the E or the F train to the Union Turnpike/Kew Gardens stop) and bring people with you.
• Contact your ties in the media and encourage them to cover this important trial. 
  

Another important thing you could do is to help us meet the mounting expenses ($10,000 and rising) of fighting this legal battle.  Keep your eyes open for the new date for the “Evening in Support of the Stop & Frisk Freedom Fighters and to Raise the Roof on their Legal expenses,” which was postponed because of Hurricane Sandy.  You can donate on line here or see information on how to donate via check.  All donations are tax-deductible.

The Stop & Frisk Freedom Fighters have more cases coming up.  There are 9 more defendants facing trial for the protest in Queens on Nov 19, 2011, and there are 13 people facing trial for the Stop & Frisk protest in Brooklyn on Nov 1, 2011.  Also Noche Diaz faces trials in Manhattan and the Bronx where he was arrested while observing the police brutalizing people.  This case in Queens is critical because it's the 1st trial where the authorities have aimed to hit people with serious jail time for protesting Stop & Frisk.  Your support is needed to defeat this outrageous prosecution.

Thank you,

Carl Dix

Jeffeth James lost 40% of his hair as NYPD officers assaulted him on March 12, leaving dreadlocks lying on the pavement at Westchester & Boynton Avenue in The Bronx.  The beat-down, which sent him to the hospital, drew a crowd, with people filming on their phones, and standing, horrified.  Mr. James was arrested and faces a traffic summons as well as six misdemeanor charges.  

Because a juror said she could not be present today or tomorrow at the trial in Queens, it is adjourned until Tuesday November 13.  By that afternoon, we hope, the defense will present its case.  Join us at 9:30 am, 125-01 Queens Boulevard, Kew Gardens.  Room 118, first floor.

Over the next several days, help support the stop-and-frisk freedom fighters:

• Rush transcript for use during the trial cost $407.  Donate online or by check here.
• Sign the resolution to the District Attorney, and ask others to do so.
• CALL or FAX the Queens District Attorney, Richard Brown. TEL 718 286 6000, FAX  718-286-6350. Tell the DA to drop charges from November 19, 2011 on Carl Dix, Jamel Mims, Robert Parsons, and Morgan Rhodewalt.  Sample letter to print and fax
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