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URBAN JUSTICE CENTER
Upcoming Spring Events
This spring is an exciting and politically important time for our issues. PROP’s May 8th public forum, “Prosecutors: Serving the Public or Serving the Police,” featured a thoughtful, impassioned, and illuminating discussion of a heretofore neglected problem (i.e. the DAs effective complicity in abusive police practices due to their virtually unquestioning prosecution of frivolous and even bogus arrests). The stop and frisk trial in federal court is piling up evidence of racially-biased police activity with regard to filling quotas, and our upcoming mayoral forum, “Policing and Criminal Justice in in NYC,” at the Schomburg Center from 7-9 pm on June 19th will present the candidates for the city’s highest office with the opportunity to state their views on policing policies in a debate format.
And now, PROP is organizing another Petition Drive Day. PROP representatives and volunteers will travel to different neighborhoods throughout the city on Sunday, May 19 from 1-5 pm to interact with New Yorkers and persuade them to sign the PROP Petition. We’ve recently passed the 22,000 mark and are very close to achieving our goal of at least 25,000 signatures.
We plan then to present the 25,000 petitions, and copies thereof, to each of the mayoral candidates at the June 19th forum, as a way of demonstrating to them and to the press and the larger public that a broad-based constituency of New Yorkers supports sweeping reforms of NYPD practices including ending stop and frisk and abolishing the quota system. Please join us this coming Sunday to help us make certain that PROP’s petition drive continues stoking the gathering political momentum for real change.
New Faith Leaders Sign on to Interfaith Coalition
We have new signatories to The Interfaith Coalition for Police Reform’s Declaration to End Abusive NYPD Practices. The following names have been added to our growing list of signees:
- Reverend Daniel Berrigan, S.J. Emeritus Professor, Fordham University
- Reverend Dr. Edgard Francisco Danielsen-Morale, Assistant Pastor for Congregational Life Metropolitan Community Church of New York
- Katherine Henderson, President of Auburn Theological Seminary
- Pastor Joseph Tolton, Associate Pastor, Social Justice at the Rivers at Rehoboth Church
Thank you to all the faith leaders leading their voices to the call for police reform. The complete list of signatories along with the Interfaith Declaration can be found here.
PROP Director Bob Gangi Speaks on CUNY TV
Watch this informative television interview of PROP director Bob Gangi, emceed by Ronnie Eldridge, former city councilperson, on her talk show, Eldridge and Co. Gangi effectively explains why abusive policing is such a serious problem for our city and how objectionable NYPD practices violate fundamental principles of justice and do terrible harm to many New Yorkers, especially people from our city’s most vulnerable populations. He also presents PROP’s work and mission and our organizing and advocacy efforts aimed at achieving sweeping NYPD reforms that will help create a more fair, livable, and inclusive city for all its citizens.
Interfaith Coalition
PROP is pleased to announce a new coalition of clergy and spiritual leaders from communities throughout New York City. The Interfaith Coalition for Police Reform was born out of PROP’s panel “Conscience of the City” held in honor of MLK Jr Day. Faith leaders came together to speak out against abusive NYPD practices and to emphasize the importance of spiritual leaders reaching across religious and other divides to work together to achieve sweeping police reform and to create a more safe, just, and livable city for all New Yorkers. To strengthen this movement, the group seeks to create the broadest coalition possible, bringing in voices and representatives from all religions, backgrounds, and beliefs. Thus far, the clergy representatives on the Interfaith Coalition include: Imam Al-Hajj Talib ‘Abdur-Rashid; Reverend Rubén Austria; Reverend Derrick Boykin; Reverend Pat Bumgardner; Paul Decoster; Rabbi Jill Jacobs; Raquel Irizarry; and Dr. Anne Klaeysen.
We hope to expand this coalition to include more faith-based leaders throughout the city who are willing to serve as a comfort to members of their communities who suffer at the hands of the NYPD, and to be a strong voice lifting up their congregants’ stories, to urge their communities to action, and to come together speaking out in unity against abusive police practices that cut across all lines of race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, or religious affiliation.
Below is the Declaration of the Interfaith Coalition for Police Reform. If you are a spiritual leader who would like to join the Coalition and its efforts, or if you would like to nominate your clergy leader to join the Coalition, please email prop@urbanjustice.org with “Interfaith Coalition” as the subject.
Criminalizing Communities: New PROP Report
We at PROP are pleased to announce the release of“Criminalizing Communities: NYPD Abuse of Vulnerable Populations”, our new report that chronicles NYPD abuses and their damaging effects against a range of the city’s most vulnerable populations including young black and brown men, Muslims, sex workers, LGBTQ people, street vendors, people with mental illness, and the homeless. Here is a link to the full report, which urges an end to the NYPD’s aggressively enforced quota system, an end to the NYPD’s stop and frisk program, and recommends other administrative and legislative reforms that will ensure that all New Yorkers can live free from police abuse.
Written in collaboration with the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice at Fordham Law School – people from the Center did the lion’s share of the research and writing and were wonderful to work with – the report finds that NYPD officers often harass the very populations they are supposed to protect. The report calls on the Mayor’s Office, the New York City Council, and Governor’s office, and the New York State Legislature, as well as the NYPD to enact sweeping reforms that would end adversarial relationships between the NYPD and marginalized communities across NYC, and ensure more equitable police policies and practices.
Conscience of the City: Faith Leaders Speaking Out
On the evening of January 23, PROP hosted a gathering at the New York Ethical Culture Society where faith leaders from around New York City gathered together to speak out against abusive police practices in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. The panelists did Dr. King’s legacy justice by condemning the NYPD’s widespread harsh and unjust practices and also by describing the role of faith leaders as counselors to those in their congregations and communities who have suffered or been traumatized by abusive NYPD practices, and the importance of telling these stories. About 100 people gathered to witness the beginning of a new coalition of faith leaders committing to reach across creed and community to work together to advocate police reform.
The panel speakers included: Rev Pat Bumgardner, Senior Pastor, Metropolitan Community Church of New York; Imam Al-Hajj Talib ‘Abdur-Rashid, President of the Islamic Leadership Council of Metropolitan New York; Rev Ruben Austria, Bronx Clergy Coalition; Founder and Executive Director of Community Connections for Youth; Derrick Boykin, Associate Pastor of the Walker Memorial Baptist Church; Brendan Fay, Catholic Activist and Filmmaker; Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Executive Director of Rabbis for Human Rights of North America. The event was moderated by Dr. Anne Klaeysen of the New York Society for Ethical Culture.
During the discussion, Reverend Pat Bumgardner reminded us that the issue of abusive police practices is not a ‘which party do you vote for’ issue, but an issue where, as Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. said, we must either learn to live together as brothers or perish as fools. We would like to thank each of the panelists, as well as Dr. Anne Klaeysen and the New York Society for Ethical Culture, for their key roles in this inspiring and encouraging event.
We will upload a video of the presentation soon.
PROP Director Robert Gangi on the Brian Lehrer Show
PROP Director Robert Gangi was recently featured on the Brian Lehrer show to discuss abusive police practices. Take a look at the segment below:
Recap of “Behind the Blue Wall of Silence”
PROP’s “From Behind The Blue Wall of Silence” public forum held on Dec 3rd at the Schomburg Center in Harlem included many impressive and important elements: strong affirmations by all six retired police officers on the panel that, despite its public denial, the NYPD does use an aggressive quota system to evaluate officer’s performance and that the system leads directly to the false arrests and unwarranted summonses that have such a harmful impact on communities of color; the panelists of color described the racial discrimination they encountered while on the force; Khalil Muhammad, Director of the Schomburg Center, made a powerful and relevant historical point by citing a report from the 1930’s that exposed the racial bias marking the practices of the NYPD; the panelists consistently returned to the theme that “the NYPD is better than this”, that most officers want to serve, not harm, the public, and that the citizens of the city must organize, must vote, and must put pressure on elected officials to enact needed reforms to the NYPD.
We now have access to full video of the event. Feel free to watch the event in its entirety below:
AlterNet Features Op-Ed by PROP Director Robert Gangi
When Police Are Encouraged to Abuse, Not Protect
The NYPD’s quota system forces officers to crack down on the very people they are supposed to serve and protect.
AlterNet November 30, 2012
by: Robert Gangi
While the harmful effects of the NYPD’s stop and frisk tactic have received the most public attention, this practice does not represent the most serious problem with current policing policy in NYC. It is not the true dark heart of the beast. That honor goes to an agency wide quota system that police brass use to evaluate the performances of officers on the street and that drives a harsh, aggressive approach to law enforcement which, in a misguided effort to keep a lid on crime, results in the targeting and abusive treatment of our city’s most vulnerable groups.
Read the rest of this article by clicking here.
Please Sign Our Updated Petition!
Take a minute out of your day to sign our revised petition to end abusive policing practices like stop and frisk in New York City! The link can be found here.