Town Hall Meeting Held in Discuss Messed Up Cop Policy to Kick Kids Out of the Hood

Image via NY1This past Friday a town hall meeting was held at John Jay to discuss the bullshit policy under which cops tell kids to get the hell out of the neighborhood. Students and other community members were given an opportunity to speak their mind and share their experiences.

"Am I still looked at like a criminal? Can I walk down the street? That's technically how I look at it," said Steven Martin, an 11th-grade student, according to NY1. He is, obviously, a dark skinned kid and, at the rate things are going, only marginally better off in Park Slope than in Ferguson.

“Our children should be able to walk in any neighborhood... and not be stopped because of the color of their skin,” said Casey Robinson, the Co-Vice President of the Park Slope Collegiate PTA. Park Slope Collegiate is one of four schools housed in John Jay. I think it’s worth pointing out that their children ARE able to walk in any neighborhood; it’s not a freedom that hasn’t been established, it’s just a freedom the cops are choosing to deny them.

And that’s kind of the point: All this group therapy stuff is important for healing and whatnot but it doesn’t address the real issue. Why the hell is no one just pointing out that this shit is pretty much a violation of civil liberties? That’s all, really. End of fucking story. The kids and concerned adults in the community, or elsewhere, do not need to defend their right to walk down any public street, as if it was up for fucking debate. That’s one of the rare beautiful things about the legal system: it doesn’t matter if you like it or you don’t, the law is that the cops can’t pull this shit.

In fact, when school safety officers in Murray Hill called the local precinct on NY1 reporters, “[t]hose officers were able to explain to school safety that public sidewalks are public.” Maybe we should get those officers to explain that to 78th Precinct Commanding Officer DiGiacomo who point-blank confirmed this was their acting policy at a Community Council meeting earlier this month.

I literally have nothing left to say. I mean, you either understand this shit is not really kosher and a gross violation of everyone’s basic right to walk on a public street without undue harassment, or you’re a racist asshole. And it doesn’t really matter which one you fall under because this is goddamn America and those kids have a right to walk down any goddamn street they want.

PS: unsurprisingly, these policies are being used at other schools in upper class, predominantly white neighborhoods, whose students are minorities and “bused in,” so to speak. In addition to Park Slope, NY1 found the same shit happening at  similar schools in Gramercy Park and Murray Hill.