Policing & Community Engagement Is a Two Way Street...

This is the message I posted on the NYPD's 28th Precinct's Facebook page and emailed to their Commanding Officer. Be involved in your communities folks. They serve us. Engage them...


On yesterday, Aug 12, I spent the day in a positive event along with police officers exploring avenues of community engagement. Yesterday was a trying day being Black in America witnessing a rebirth 1960's hate and chaos in Charlottesville. On my way to see the movie Detroit at approximately 7pm, I saw at least ten officers including one white shirt, wish I was exaggerating but sadly I am not, surrounding one Black guy. They were on the sidewalk in front of McDonalds.


I thought it must be some kind of drill so I stopped to ask. I was told that it was not but that the gentleman had hit someone with a bat. The young officer and the white shirt seemed to share this explanation with some expectation that I would find their response acceptable. I did not... I said to them that if it takes ten of them to subdue one man, then we are in deep trouble! Surely, there must have been crime occurring somewhere else in the precinct. Surely...


The young officer was upset by my response. He then turned on me and told me to move along. I told him it was public space and that I did not have to. So he told me to step aside from the public spectacle THEY were creating and that was occupying much of the sidewalk. Seems their overkill was to show the public they are doing their job... The flip side of that however is showing the public that they are either very afraid, grossly under/unskilled and/or insensitive to the community they serve. There would not be ten cops including a supervisor arresting ten White guys with guns...


Come on NYPD. Respect the communities you serve with the same dignity and respect you would want in your own neighborhoods. I saw this once before with a NINE year old boy accused of shoplifting. It was upsetting to me then too. I spoke on it then too. Do your job and yes I support you in that but overkill is offensive.


And then I went to see the movie Detroit depicting the 1967 riots where rogue officers got away with killing innocent Black people in the Algiers Hotel for no damn reason you know, just as I am sick of seeing being played out still today... Yesterday was a trying day being Black in America. I wish the 28th Precinct had not added to it...


Be safe out there but respect the public you serve. Newsflash: Black folks are human. We are not animals. One Black man, with only a bat, should not be such a threat to warrant TEN skilled officers on the scene. IJS...