by Debra Sweet
As we're going into the prosecution phase in the high-stakes trial in Queens where four of our activists could get two years in jail for protesting stop-and-frisk, I'd like everyone to remember WHY we're doing this. Travis Morales reports from Tuesday's hearing on stop-and-frisk conducted by a committee of the NY City Council at Brooklyn College:
About 180 packed the NYC Council Civil Rights Committee Hearing on Stop-and-Frisk at Brooklyn College. About 40 people, including myself, testified. A wide array of people, mainly African-American with some white and Latino people, young and older, testified. The testimony was gripping. Person after person, 15 year old to a 73 year old told about being stopped, humiliated and frisked. Others told of being brutalized. Some people in the audience were crying when a petite African-American woman spoke about being stopped as she walked into her house. She and her family members were savagely beaten with members of her family suffering a broken leg and jaw. She kept wailing to the Council members, "What are you going to do about this?" 15 year old young women told of being groped and fondled. The stories were vivid, heartbreaking but anger provoking and enraging. Stop-and-Frisk must be stopped. A former police officer that is an official with the NAACP spoke to how people in the community are fed up and angry and warned if something isn't done to stop this that some people were going to take law into their own hands. Attorneys told of being stopped and frisked with one having a gun put to his head. This was quite an experience.
Why would we allow this to go on 684,000 times in 2011, without protesting?
Today, two alternate jurors were chosen, and seated with the 6 primary jurors. They are all Queens residents, half born in Queens, and the others in Ireland, Israel, Guyana and Dominican Republic. Through the process of jury selection, 6 of the 7 jurors who expressed a strong opinion about stop-and-frisk were against it. Needless to say, most of them didn't get on the jury.
We had a smaller group of supporters today, but just as many officers from the court Special Response Team who have been following the stop-and-frisk protest trials in four boroughs. The judge claimed that he didn't "notice" the six officers who rotate to stand at the exit door, or next to the supporter side of courtroom, behind the defendants and our attorneys. They glare at us and look for things we may be doing wrong, like reading books. Two are especially beefy.
The day ended with opening statements from the prosecutor, and defense. Michael Vanunu, an assistant D.A. who is conducting his first ever trial, now has a permanent, shadow, his supervisor, who sits behind him and is consulting on every little thing. He also has another Assistant D.A. who took over jury selection today, and did their opening argument, rather shrilly. Their case is that, even though there was a protest going on that they had no problem at all with, some of the protesters "crossed" the barricade which surrounded a full block around the 103rd precinct, walked "all the way" to the door, locked arms in front of it and refused to move.
Defense attorneys Meghan Maurus, Thomas Hillgardner, and Marty Stolar sharply challenged this scenario, telling the jury 1) it was the NYPD who barricaded a whole city block in front of the precinct, disrupting their own normal operation; 2) it was the NYPD who opened the barricade and invited the protest in, and 3) there was no intent to disrupt the precinct by protesters. Rather, our intent was to have a noisy protest at one of the precincts with the highest rate of stop-and-frisks in the city, and to tell them to stop it.
The trial opens at 9:30 am tomorrow (Thursday), Room K11 in Queens Criminal Court, with testimony from two arresting officers. At the point, the schedule is no court on Friday, and back Monday morning for the main prosecution witness, Inspector Charles McEvoy of the 103rd Precinct. See you there!
As we're going into the prosecution phase in the high-stakes trial in Queens where four of our activists could get two years in jail for protesting stop-and-frisk, I'd like everyone to remember WHY we're doing this. Travis Morales reports from Tuesday's hearing on stop-and-frisk conducted by a committee of the NY City Council at Brooklyn College:
About 180 packed the NYC Council Civil Rights Committee Hearing on Stop-and-Frisk at Brooklyn College. About 40 people, including myself, testified. A wide array of people, mainly African-American with some white and Latino people, young and older, testified. The testimony was gripping. Person after person, 15 year old to a 73 year old told about being stopped, humiliated and frisked. Others told of being brutalized. Some people in the audience were crying when a petite African-American woman spoke about being stopped as she walked into her house. She and her family members were savagely beaten with members of her family suffering a broken leg and jaw. She kept wailing to the Council members, "What are you going to do about this?" 15 year old young women told of being groped and fondled. The stories were vivid, heartbreaking but anger provoking and enraging. Stop-and-Frisk must be stopped. A former police officer that is an official with the NAACP spoke to how people in the community are fed up and angry and warned if something isn't done to stop this that some people were going to take law into their own hands. Attorneys told of being stopped and frisked with one having a gun put to his head. This was quite an experience.
Why would we allow this to go on 684,000 times in 2011, without protesting?
Today, two alternate jurors were chosen, and seated with the 6 primary jurors. They are all Queens residents, half born in Queens, and the others in Ireland, Israel, Guyana and Dominican Republic. Through the process of jury selection, 6 of the 7 jurors who expressed a strong opinion about stop-and-frisk were against it. Needless to say, most of them didn't get on the jury.
We had a smaller group of supporters today, but just as many officers from the court Special Response Team who have been following the stop-and-frisk protest trials in four boroughs. The judge claimed that he didn't "notice" the six officers who rotate to stand at the exit door, or next to the supporter side of courtroom, behind the defendants and our attorneys. They glare at us and look for things we may be doing wrong, like reading books. Two are especially beefy.
The day ended with opening statements from the prosecutor, and defense. Michael Vanunu, an assistant D.A. who is conducting his first ever trial, now has a permanent, shadow, his supervisor, who sits behind him and is consulting on every little thing. He also has another Assistant D.A. who took over jury selection today, and did their opening argument, rather shrilly. Their case is that, even though there was a protest going on that they had no problem at all with, some of the protesters "crossed" the barricade which surrounded a full block around the 103rd precinct, walked "all the way" to the door, locked arms in front of it and refused to move.
Defense attorneys Meghan Maurus, Thomas Hillgardner, and Marty Stolar sharply challenged this scenario, telling the jury 1) it was the NYPD who barricaded a whole city block in front of the precinct, disrupting their own normal operation; 2) it was the NYPD who opened the barricade and invited the protest in, and 3) there was no intent to disrupt the precinct by protesters. Rather, our intent was to have a noisy protest at one of the precincts with the highest rate of stop-and-frisks in the city, and to tell them to stop it.
The trial opens at 9:30 am tomorrow (Thursday), Room K11 in Queens Criminal Court, with testimony from two arresting officers. At the point, the schedule is no court on Friday, and back Monday morning for the main prosecution witness, Inspector Charles McEvoy of the 103rd Precinct. See you there!
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