Pssst… I recently joined Discontents, a collective of newsletter writers on the left. We have a separate newsletter with a weekly summary of everybody’s work. It includes Substacks by: Gaby Del Valle and Felipe De La Hoz; Kim Kelly; André Carlisle; Derek Davidson; Luke O’Neil; Patrick Wyman; Kelsey Atherton; Connor Wroe Southard; Jordan Uhl & Rob Rousseau; Jay Caspian Kang, Tammy Kim, and Andy Liu; and the entire Discourse Blog team. What a lineup, eh?
I recommend this Gothamist story by George Joseph and Jake Offenhartz on how the NYPD used facial recognition technology to track down a Black Lives Matter protester earlier this week, then 50 (FIFTY!) cops camped out at his apartment for five hours before eventually giving up and going home because he refused to surrender to them. Eventually the activist was charged with yelling in a police officer’s ear with a megaphone. (It’s hard to say exactly without reading the full facts alleged, but I’d bet some money that that complaint doesn’t actually make out a crime. They charged misdemeanor assault anyway.)
What gets me about this story is the NYPD once again reveals themselves to be just absolute clowns. The reason that they camped out and demanded he come out like petulant children, then eventually went home with their tails between their legs without making an arrest is… they didn’t bother to get an arrest warrant. All that fancy facial recognition technology and they’re too lazy to get the warrant to actually pick this guy up! An evil intimidation tactic, a complete waste of my money as a taxpayer, and they can’t even do the one minor bureaucratic thing that would allow this mess not to completely blow up in their face. Imagine planning this overblown an intimidation tactic and not, like, sending the new guy down to the judge to get a warrant just in case the activist knows his rights. Embarrassing.
Instead, they showed up in broad daylight without a warrant, then clowned around in Hell’s Kitchen for five hours, trying to coax him out of his apartment saying ridiculous things like “your lawyer is here if you come out.” The man was in fact on the phone with a lawyer telling him to stay inside until he sees a warrant. Surprise, surprise, the middle school bullies are all grown up and they’re still lazy idiots (now with more guns).
I really do not mean to minimize how traumatic this experience was for the person inside the house—no one should have to go through that, especially not because of their activism and/or beliefs. The trauma was, of course, the point, much more so than the actual criminal court process from here out. But I also think it’s important to talk about how incompetent the NYPD is at doing what is ostensibly its actual job. Intimidation and violence, sure. The actual police work? Following up? Investigating? Filling out paperwork? Not so much.
Photo: flickr / Bernard Spragg “The Laughing Clowns”