A few weeks ago, New York City councilman, Jumaane D. Williams and Kirsten Foy an aide to the city’s public advocate, Bill de Blasio, were going through a THIRD checkpoint to attend a private luncheon for city officials after marching in the West Indian Day parade. For some reason, The cops wouldn't accept their official city ID even though others had passed the same checkpoint with the same ID moments before. I guess they didn't believe these young bruthas could possibly be city officials.

So they proceeded to arrest them while Jumaane was actually on his cell talking to a Chief of Police whom he called. The arresting officers yanked the phone outta his hand while he was speaking to a Chief.

The other dude, my ex boo Kirsten, was thrown to the ground while backing away from the cops. The cop said he punched him which the video shows he did not do. Kirsten Foy was Al Sharpton's director of criminal justice for several years. In that role, he was responsible for coordinating protests and dealing with the familiies of victims of police brutality. Kirsten was centrally involved in the cases of the Gena Six and Sean Bell, among others. He's now the senior aide to NYC's public advocate Bill de Blasio.

So yeah, they fucked with the WRONG one this time. Should be interesting.

[Edited 10/6/11 7:40am]

City Aide in Spotlight After Being Detained

Kirsten John Foy says that everything happens for a reason — and that the reason he and a black New York City councilman, Jumaane D. Williams, were briefly detained by the police at a parade on Sept. 5 was to call attention to racial bias in policing.

But the event also had a secondary effect: It pushed Mr. Foy, a charismatic former aide to the Rev. Al Sharpton, into the political spotlight.

At a news conference on the steps of City Hall the day after he and Mr. Williams were handcuffed, Mr. Foy, 35, who is an aide to the city’s public advocate, Bill de Blasio, grabbed the crowd’s attention, describing with a preacher’s cadences and vivid turns of phrase the stop-and-frisk practices he said the police used “to terrorize our communities.”

Before he had finished speaking, some were already talking about whether he might consider a run for the City Council.

Mr. Foy said he had no specific plan to run. But if the right seat became available, he said, he would consider it. Regardless of whether he runs for office or continues as a largely behind-the-scenes political operative, those close to him say he has the potential, over the long term, to be a forceful advocate for racial justice in the city.

Mr. Sharpton, in an interview, said Mr. Foy reminded him of himself, and he could imagine his running for office or “doing in his own generation what I’ve done” as a civil rights leader. And Mr. de Blasio said he expected Mr. Foy “to have a very strong voice in New York City life — and a challenging voice, in a good way.”

Mr. Foy, an occasional preacher at a small Pentecostal church he attends in Brooklyn, once told Mr. de Blasio that he aspired to be “a progressive version of a Ralph Reed,” the conservative who brought the Christian Coalition to prominence in the 1990s.

“I believe that there is a space in the progressive community of faith to do the same thing, to build an infrastructure,” Mr. Foy said in a recent interview. “Progressive people of faith have to start engaging in public policy as rigorously as conservatives.”

Mr. Foy first became politically active as a student at Brooklyn College, leading the Black Students’ Union and organizing protests against tuition increases and city efforts to require students on welfare to work.

He met Mr. Sharpton after inviting him to speak at the college in 1997, when Mr. Sharpton was a candidate for mayor; afterward, Mr. Foy went to work on Mr. Sharpton’s campaign. Over the next several years, he dropped out of college, worked at the telecommunications company WorldCom and joined the 2004 Kerry-Edwards presidential campaign before going back to work for Mr. Sharpton’s National Action Network, where he ran the organization’s Criminal Justice Initiative.

In Mr. de Blasio’s office, he has played a similar role, most recently acting as the office’s liaison to the family of Denise Gay, who was fatally shot, possibly by a police officer, in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, this month. He has also worked on efforts to overhaul the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which reviews complaints about the police, and he coordinated a successful lobbying effort for a state bill that prohibited the police from keeping an electronic database of everyone who has been stopped, questioned and frisked.

One on one, Mr. Foy is gentler and more soft-spoken than when he is behind a microphone, displaying the side that Mr. Sharpton evoked when he said that Mr. Foy excelled at dealing with bereaved families. After the police’s fatal shooting of Sean Bell in 2006, for instance, Mr. Foy became so close to Mr. Bell’s fiancée, Nicole Paultre Bell, that when she decided to run for City Council, she asked him to oversee her campaign. (He did, and she lost.)

Mr. Foy said he was introduced to racism in childhood, as the son of a black father and a white mother.

“I have stark memories, growing up, of disparate treatment that I would receive, depending on which parent I was with,” he said. If he was with his father on the street, and his father asked for directions, Mr. Foy said, he would often be ignored. When he was with his mother, people “would trip over themselves” to be helpful.

“I was able to recognize from a very early age that race was a very significant reality in life,” he said.

Mr. Foy said he believed racial bias was at work in the police’s decision to handcuff and detain him and Mr. Williams when they tried to walk along a restricted path from the West Indian Day Parade to a lunch for city officials at the Brooklyn Museum. In a widely circulated video of the episode, Mr. Foy can be seen walking backward, talking to a police officer, before the officer pushes him to the ground to handcuff him.

“We were trying to engage them in a reasonable dialogue, one city official to another,” Mr. Foy said. He said he believed that the police officers “wanted to send a message” about their authority, especially when confronted with “two confident, composed, articulate” black men. The message, he said, was, “ ‘You have no rights we’re bound to respect.’ ”

The men were not charged with a crime, and were quickly released; the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, expressed regret about the event. The Police Department is conducting an internal affairs investigation to determine if the officers acted inappropriately.

A few days after the men were detained, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, recalling a White House “beer summit” to address a controversy over the arrest of a black Harvard professor by the police in Cambridge, Mass., suggested it had been a misunderstanding that could be resolved over a beer. Mr. Foy and Mr. Williams proposed that, instead, Mr. Bloomberg sit with them and a group of young black and Latino men to hear about the young men’s experiences with law enforcement officers.

Mr. Foy said he believed it was important that city officials learn from the episode.

“We’ve talked to a lot of people who want to see this dialogue happen,” Mr. Foy said.

None of this surprises and even with evidence shown about these type incidents that continue to happen in NYC for years, it amazes me that sometimes the reaction from some is "those folks should stop whining"...go figure.

[Edited 10/6/11 10:16am]

What's up with NY? I mean, I'd kind of expect more of that kind of thing to go on here given it's conservative flavoring and all. But NY is the, port to the world, looking at it from my point of view I'd expect them to have a bit less "backwoods" mentality. Stuff like this make it seem so much deeper entrenched there then anywhere else in the States.

~ Oh and is that girl in the background in the picture above a nun?~

[Edited 10/6/11 10:31am]

Thats horrible! I hope everybody gets what's coming to them. A kick in the ass and then some.

morningsong said:

What's up with NY? I mean, I'd kind of expect more of that kind of thing to go on here given it's conservative flavoring and all. But NY is the, port to the world, looking at it from my point of view I'd expect them to have a bit less "backwoods" mentality. Stuff like this make it seem so much deeper entrenched there then anywhere else in the States.

~ Oh and is that girl in the background in the picture above a nun?~

[Edited 10/6/11 10:31am]

This has been going on for years in NYC and that 'backwoods' mentality has been in existence in NYC. Orger "UptownNY" has mentioned this several times about NYC. There's a lot of 'silent racism' going on here, and just because you may not 'see it', doesn't mean it's not happening. For a city with a multitude of racial/ethnic groups living in many of the same communities, you would never think, this type of thing is still happening. But it truly is. The relationship between specific communities of color and the NYPD is very strained here and has been for a while.

[Edited 10/6/11 11:22am]

morningsong said:

What's up with NY? I mean, I'd kind of expect more of that kind of thing to go on here given it's conservative flavoring and all. But NY is the, port to the world, looking at it from my point of view I'd expect them to have a bit less "backwoods" mentality. Stuff like this make it seem so much deeper entrenched there then anywhere else in the States.

~ Oh and is that girl in the background in the picture above a nun?~

[Edited 10/6/11 10:31am]

I think it's a headband.

But seriously, it trips me out when people go on about how racist the South is. Yeah, we've got our issues and profiling is a rampant problem everywhere. But it seems NYPD is CONSTANTLY in the news for harassing and egregiously violating the rights of black men. And I can't recall in recent memory where something like this happened in the South to bruthas AFTER they've cleared two previous checkpoints and showed official ID. That's some extra spayshul NY type shit.

[Edited 10/6/11 11:19am]

SCNDLS said:

morningsong said:

What's up with NY? I mean, I'd kind of expect more of that kind of thing to go on here given it's conservative flavoring and all. But NY is the, port to the world, looking at it from my point of view I'd expect them to have a bit less "backwoods" mentality. Stuff like this make it seem so much deeper entrenched there then anywhere else in the States.

~ Oh and is that girl in the background in the picture above a nun?~

[Edited 10/6/11 10:31am]

I think it's a headband.

But seriously, it trips me out when people go on about how racist the South is. Yeah, we've got our issues and profiling is a rampant problem everywhere. But it seems NYPD is CONSTANTLY in the news for constantly harassing and egregiously violating the rights of black men. And I can't recall in recent memory where something like this happened in the South to bruthas AFTER they've cleared two previous checkpoints and showed official ID. That's some extra spayshul NY type shit.

there is brutality going across the board on various forces and yes the NYPD doesnt really matter that NYC is the melting pot, its not really that anymore, its poor and very wealthy that werent born in nyc, nyc has 31% actual newyorkers in it, the other 69% are mostly out of time and more than half are from other countries/wealthy that have bought the city up and forced this once "mixed" area into a mixture of very rich and very poor. ON the topic of brutality you are seeing it 24/7 now on display on the wall street protest where mostly poor out of work are getting brutalized of all races

SCNDLS said:

morningsong said:

What's up with NY? I mean, I'd kind of expect more of that kind of thing to go on here given it's conservative flavoring and all. But NY is the, port to the world, looking at it from my point of view I'd expect them to have a bit less "backwoods" mentality. Stuff like this make it seem so much deeper entrenched there then anywhere else in the States.

~ Oh and is that girl in the background in the picture above a nun?~

[Edited 10/6/11 10:31am]

I think it's a headband.

But seriously, it trips me out when people go on about how racist the South is. Yeah, we've got our issues and profiling is a rampant problem everywhere. But it seems NYPD is CONSTANTLY in the news for constantly harassing and egregiously violating the rights of black men. And I can't recall in recent memory where something like this happened in the South to bruthas AFTER they've cleared two previous checkpoints and showed official ID. That's some extra spayshul NY type shit.

NYPD have been doing that for years. It's an epidemic among them. Many abuse their authority. Many people of color, primarily black males/hispanic males, are often afraid to ask a cop for their badge number when they get stopped and did nothing wrong, because that cop with the 'cowboy' attitude will take it personal and may find some other reason like disorderly conduct to charge them with, even when they've done nothing 'out of order'. It's sad. I lived in the south (Northern Florida actually) for 5 years and felt safer with the cops and sheriffs there, than all the years I lived in NYC. I don't feel comfortable around them here. There's always that 'barrier' you put between you and some cops, because of the reputation that department has for shooting unarmed black males and treating many people from communities of color with disrespect, because some of them think it's some type of privilege they're given to treat us like that. The 'cowboy' cops make it bad for the good cops.

[Edited 10/6/11 11:25am]

2elijah said:

SCNDLS said:

I think it's a headband.

But seriously, it trips me out when people go on about how racist the South is. Yeah, we've got our issues and profiling is a rampant problem everywhere. But it seems NYPD is CONSTANTLY in the news for constantly harassing and egregiously violating the rights of black men. And I can't recall in recent memory where something like this happened in the South to bruthas AFTER they've cleared two previous checkpoints and showed official ID. That's some extra spayshul NY type shit.

NYPD have been doing that for years. It's an epidemic among them. Many abuse their authority. Many people of color, primarily black males/hispanic males, are often afraid to ask a cop for their badge number when they get stopped and did nothing wrong, because that cop with the 'cowboy' attitude will take it personal and may find some other reason like disorderly conduct to charge you with, even when you did nothing 'out of order'. It's sad. I lived in the south (Northern Florida actually) for 5 years and felt safer with the cops and sheriffs there, than all the years I lived in NYC. I don't feel comfortable around them here. There's always that 'barrier' you put between you and some cops, because of the reputation that department has for shooting unarmed black males and treating many people from communities of color with disrespect, because some of them think it's some type of privilege their given to do so.

Just crazy. I've had nothing but pleasant exchanges with cops in Texas even when they were giving me a ticket. I didn't appreciate the ticket but at no time did I feel targeted cuz I was a black woman. Of course, most bruthas have a different experience than I do, and maybe the cops just didn't view me as a threat but may think of all black men as "perps."

[Edited 10/6/11 11:33am]

There is racism everywhere you go in the US. It's one of the things the country was founded on.

Also, while there are good cops around in the NYPD, I generally, stay away from them as well. It's amazing how differently some of them treat white and asians as opposed to blacks and hispanics. It's a world of a fucking difference.

DAYUM! They just don't quit do they? It's as if they take pride in messing with black men and as if the moment they awake in the morning, there one and only goal is to arrest some man simply because he is black.

That behavior was totally uncalled for and they would not have treated a jew or italian or irishman that way.

Folks need to start fighting back and I'm not talking about fighting in the court of law. Lots of black men got guns but they're using them on the wrong people.

Yes I'm being serious.

This is so not on topic, but...

Kirsten is your EX boo, SCNDLS?!?

Uh... you need to fix that, 'cause...

I've been saying it for years, maybe now you out-of-towners will believe me. You'll find just as much racial prejudice in NYC and the Northeast as you will the Deep South. Shit, even off-duty black & latino cops have been jacked. I remember one white sergeant referring to black and brown cops as 'perps with badges'. In one precinct they put pictures of black cops on wanted posters. Recently, a bunch of cops were busted in a ticket-fixing scandal. Some of them were taped describing black folks as 'n*****s' and 'animals'. That's the kind of attitude that exists here. It's not surprising considering most cops come from the segregated suburbs.

...and the fire department is no different.

Lammastide said:

ThreadBare said:

Lammastide said:

This is so not on topic, but...

Kirsten is your EX boo, SCNDLS?!?

Uh... you need to fix that, 'cause...

Way to hijack!

Lammastide said:

This is so not on topic, but...

Kirsten is your EX boo, SCNDLS?!?

Uh... you need to fix that, 'cause...

uPtoWnNY said:

I've been saying it for years, maybe now you out-of-towners will believe me. You'll find just as much racial prejudice in NYC and the Northeast as you will the Deep South. Shit, even off-duty black & latino cops have been jacked. I remember one white sergeant referring to black and brown cops as 'perps with badges'. In one precinct they put pictures of black cops on wanted posters. Recently, a bunch of cops were busted in a ticket-fixing scandal. Some of them were taped describing black folks as 'n*****s' and 'animals'. That's the kind of attitude that exists here. It's not surprising considering most cops come from the segregated suburbs.

...and the fire department is no different.

I definitely think the problem is more systemic in the North than it is down here.

Here's Bill de Blasio, NYC Public Advocate and the man Kirsten works for, discussing the incident

Here's the speaker of NY city council

Although this is off-topic, this video about RentaCenter's shady practices shows my boy at his articulate, smart-ass, passionate Brooklyn best

He's definitely a brutha who's down for the cause and puts much action behind the rhetoric. I can't wait to see where he'll be in 10 years.

I will keep saying it. PEOPLE NEED TO FIGHT BACK! A cop is nothing but a thug/gang member with legal authority.

HotGritz said:

I will keep saying it. PEOPLE NEED TO FIGHT BACK! A cop is nothing but a thug/gang member with legal authority.

I hate to agree with a sweeping generalization like that, but where black and latino men are concerned too often that's the case.

SCNDLS said:

HotGritz said:

I will keep saying it. PEOPLE NEED TO FIGHT BACK! A cop is nothing but a thug/gang member with legal authority.

I hate to agree with a sweeping generalization like that, but where black and latino men are concerned too often that's the case.

And even poor white men get the heel of the boot. I've seen and heard some fucked up things and I just don't give a crap about any of them anymore. Don't get me started on how minority women have been done by these asswipes with badges.

Lammastide said:

This is so not on topic, but...

Kirsten is your EX boo, SCNDLS?!?

Uh... you need to fix that, 'cause...

I'm sayin'

on topic....

I have to go back and re-read... these stories sicken me... because it hits close to home since I have to stay diligent with my own black son who's 20 and perfect pickins for men in blue itching to treat a black man like my son is a criminal with zero cause.

I am glad I have made friends with policemen in my neighborhood... I did so out of neccessity... and its a fucking shame I even have to do that in this day and age, I shouldn't have to worry so.

paintedlady said:

Lammastide said:

This is so not on topic, but...

Kirsten is your EX boo, SCNDLS?!?

Uh... you need to fix that, 'cause...

I'm sayin'

on topic....

I have to go back and re-read... these stories sicken me... because it hits close to home since I have to stay diligent with my own black son who's 20 and perfect pickins for men in blue itching to treat a black man like my son is a criminal with zero cause.

I am glad I have made friends with policemen in my neighborhood... I did so out of neccessity... and its a fucking shame I even have to do that in this day and age, I shouldn't have to worry so.

Shit's ridiculous

There are some great men and women working in the police both here in the UK and in the USA. They do a tough job for not a great amount of pay....

....but....

...there are also some complete and utter jobsworths, complete a-holes. Remember, just because they have the uniform doesn't make them geniuses or better people....like any job or walk of life there are gonna be a sizeable amount idiots. That includes the police. The police should use stuff like this to identify who they are and give them the elbow...tell them to go clean the streets for a living!

Reminds me of when I got the bus home from work once. There was this coloured guy who had clearly been missold the wrong bus ticket earlier in the day. He'd paid his money but was given the wrong ticket. The driver wasnt letting him on though and wasnt gonna drive away until he left the bus. The guy stood his ground though, fair play to him. So we had a stalemate and the driver rings the police.

Some people who didnt know what was going on were getting moody shouting "just get off the bus, we wanna go home". Next thing you know three police cars turn up (like they were attending a terrorist threat or something) and four heavy set police thugs get on the bus and start dragging the men off, no questions asked. I was sitting near the front so got up to remonstrate, but one of the cops just growled at me to sit back down. I gave him some language and he threatened to take me off as well!! I was so angry! When I got to my stop I told the driver he was a complete prick and I was gonna report him to his company...I did but I got fobbed off with some b*llshit excuse.

DaveT said:

There are some great men and women working in the police both here in the UK and in the USA. They do a tough job for not a great amount of pay....

....but....

...there are also some complete and utter jobsworths, complete a-holes. Remember, just because they have the uniform doesn't make them geniuses or better people....like any job or walk of life there are gonna be a sizeable amount idiots. That includes the police. The police should use stuff like this to identify who they are and give them the elbow...tell them to go clean the streets for a living!

Reminds me of when I got the bus home from work once. There was this coloured guy who had clearly been missold the wrong bus ticket earlier in the day. He'd paid his money but was given the wrong ticket. The driver wasnt letting him on though and wasnt gonna drive away until he left the bus. The guy stood his ground though, fair play to him. So we had a stalemate and the driver rings the police.

Some people who didnt know what was going on were getting moody shouting "just get off the bus, we wanna go home". Next thing you know three police cars turn up (like they were attending a terrorist threat or something) and four heavy set police thugs get on the bus and start dragging the men off, no questions asked. I was sitting near the front so got up to remonstrate, but one of the cops just growled at me to sit back down. I gave him some language and he threatened to take me off as well!! I was so angry! When I got to my stop I told the driver he was a complete prick and I was gonna report him to his company...I did but I got fobbed off with some b*llshit excuse.

The good ole USA at it again...............and again.

DaveT said:

There are some great men and women working in the police both here in the UK and in the USA. They do a tough job for not a great amount of pay....

....but....

...there are also some complete and utter jobsworths, complete a-holes. Remember, just because they have the uniform doesn't make them geniuses or better people....like any job or walk of life there are gonna be a sizeable amount idiots. That includes the police. The police should use stuff like this to identify who they are and give them the elbow...tell them to go clean the streets for a living!

Reminds me of when I got the bus home from work once. There was this coloured guy who had clearly been missold the wrong bus ticket earlier in the day. He'd paid his money but was given the wrong ticket. The driver wasnt letting him on though and wasnt gonna drive away until he left the bus. The guy stood his ground though, fair play to him. So we had a stalemate and the driver rings the police.

Some people who didnt know what was going on were getting moody shouting "just get off the bus, we wanna go home". Next thing you know three police cars turn up (like they were attending a terrorist threat or something) and four heavy set police thugs get on the bus and start dragging the men off, no questions asked. I was sitting near the front so got up to remonstrate, but one of the cops just growled at me to sit back down. I gave him some language and he threatened to take me off as well!! I was so angry! When I got to my stop I told the driver he was a complete prick and I was gonna report him to his company...I did but I got fobbed off with some b*llshit excuse.

True, but I think that often a certain type of personality who seeks to control others and be violent without discretion/impunity is drawn to the badge. I'd be interested to see personality assessments/screenings of people in law enforcement.