Why Is the N.Y.P.D. After Me?

by Nicholas K. Peart
Opinion Column

New York Times
December 17, 2011 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/opinion/sunday/young-black-and-frisked-by-the-nypd.html

When I was 14, my mother told me not to panic if a police
officer stopped me. And she cautioned me to carry ID and
never run away from the police or I could be shot. In the
nine years since my mother gave me this advice, I have had
numerous occasions to consider her wisdom.

One evening in August of 2006, I was celebrating my 18th
birthday with my cousin and a friend. We were staying at my
sister's house on 96th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in
Manhattan and decided to walk to a nearby place and get some
burgers. It was closed so we sat on benches in the median
strip that runs down the middle of Broadway. We were
talking, watching the night go by, enjoying the evening when
suddenly, and out of nowhere, squad cars surrounded us. A
policeman yelled from the window, "Get on the ground!"

I was stunned. And I was scared. Then I was on the ground -
with a gun pointed at me. I couldn't see what was happening
but I could feel a policeman's hand reach into my pocket and
remove my wallet. Apparently he looked through and found the
ID I kept there. "Happy Birthday," he said sarcastically.
The officers questioned my cousin and friend, asked what
they were doing in town, and then said goodnight and left us
on the sidewalk.

Less than two years later, in the spring of 2008, N.Y.P.D.
officers stopped and frisked me, again. And for no apparent
reason. This time I was leaving my grandmother's home in
Flatbush, Brooklyn; a squad car passed me as I walked down
East 49th Street to the bus stop. The car backed up. Three
officers jumped out. Not again. The officers ordered me to
stand, hands against a garage door, fished my wallet out of
my pocket and looked at my ID. Then they let me go.

I was stopped again in September of 2010. This time I was
just walking home from the gym. It was the same routine: I
was stopped, frisked, searched, ID'd and let go.

These experiences changed the way I felt about the police.
After the third incident I worried when police cars drove
by; I was afraid I would be stopped and searched or that
something worse would happen. I dress better if I go
downtown. I don't hang out with friends outside my
neighborhood in Harlem as much as I used to. Essentially, I
incorporated into my daily life the sense that I might find
myself up against a wall or on the ground with an officer's
gun at my head. For a black man in his 20s like me, it's
just a fact of life in New York.

Here are a few other facts: last year, the N.Y.P.D. recorded
more than 600,000 stops; 84 percent of those stopped were
blacks or Latinos. Police are far more likely to use force
when stopping blacks or Latinos than whites. In half the
stops police cite the vague "furtive movements" as the
reason for the stop. Maybe black and brown people just look
more furtive, whatever that means. These stops are part of a
larger, more widespread problem - a racially discriminatory
system of stop-and-frisk in the N.Y.P.D. The police use the
excuse that they're fighting crime to continue the practice,
but no one has ever actually proved that it reduces crime or
makes the city safer. Those of us who live in the
neighborhoods where stop-and-frisks are a basic fact of
daily life don't feel safer as a result.

We need change. When I was young I thought cops were cool.
They had a respectable and honorable job to keep people safe
and fight crime. Now, I think their tactics are unfair and
they abuse their authority. The police should consider the
consequences of a generation of young people who want
nothing to do with them - distrust, alienation and more
crime.

Last May, I was outside my apartment building on my way to
the store when two police officers jumped out of an unmarked
car and told me to stop and put my hands up against the
wall. I complied. Without my permission, they removed my
cellphone from my hand, and one of the officers reached into
my pockets, and removed my wallet and keys. He looked
through my wallet, then handcuffed me. The officers wanted
to know if I had just come out of a particular building. No,
I told them, I lived next door.

One of the officers asked which of the keys they had removed
from my pocket opened my apartment door. Then he entered my
building and tried to get into my apartment with my key. My
18-year-old sister was inside with two of our younger
siblings; later she told me she had no idea why the police
were trying to get into our apartment and was terrified. She
tried to call me, but because they had confiscated my phone,
I couldn't answer.

Meanwhile, a white officer put me in the back of the police
car. I was still handcuffed. The officer asked if I had any
marijuana, and I said no. He removed and searched my shoes
and patted down my socks. I asked why they were searching
me, and he told me someone in my building complained that a
person they believed fit my description had been ringing
their bell. After the other officer returned from inside my
apartment building, they opened the door to the police car,
told me to get out, removed the handcuffs and simply drove
off. I was deeply shaken.

For young people in my neighborhood, getting stopped and
frisked is a rite of passage. We expect the police to jump
us at any moment. We know the rules: don't run and don't try
to explain, because speaking up for yourself might get you
arrested or worse. And we all feel the same way - degraded,
harassed, violated and criminalized because we're black or
Latino. Have I been stopped more than the average young
black person? I don't know, but I look like a zillion other
people on the street. And we're all just trying to live our
lives.

As a teenager, I was quiet and kept to myself. I'm about to
graduate from the Borough of Manhattan Community College,
and I have a stronger sense of myself after getting involved
with the Brotherhood/Sister Sol, a neighborhood organization
in Harlem. We educate young people about their rights when
they're stopped by the police and how to stay safe in those
interactions. I have talked to dozens of young people who
have had experiences like mine. And I know firsthand how
much it messes with you. Because of them, I'm doing what I
can to help change things and am acting as a witness in a
lawsuit brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights to
stop the police from racially profiling and harassing black
and brown people in New York.

It feels like an important thing to be part of a community
of hundreds of thousands of people who are wrongfully
stopped on their way to work, school, church or shopping,
and are patted down or worse by the police though they carry
no weapon; and searched for no reason other than the color
of their skin. I hope police practices will change and that
when I have children I won't need to pass along my mother's
advice.

[Nicholas K. Peart is a student at Borough of Manhattan
Community College.]

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