New York City Council member Jumaane Williams and a senior staffer in the Public Advocate’s office were arrested at the West Indian Day Parade in Brooklyn on Monday as they tried to leave the parade ground to attend an event.
The two men, both black, both bearing city ID, were surrounded by police as they tried to make their way to the Brooklyn Museum. Police officers at two checkpoints had already waved them through. Kirsten Foy, aide to Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, later told his boss that an officer had given them permission to use a blocked-off sidewalk. Yet, Williams and Foy were surrounded by police, de Blasio told the New York Times:
Mr. Williams said he tried to call a higher ranking police official he knew who could vouch for him, but to no avail. An officer said to Mr. Foy, “It’s over for you. You’re done.” A video then shows police tripping Mr. Foy and pushing him to the ground, though the longtime political aide does not appear to be resisting.
A police statement released yesterday said: “A crowd formed and an unknown individual punched a police captain on the scene. In order to separate them from the crowd, Mr. Williams and Mr. Foy, who were handcuffed, were brought across the street and detained there until their identities were established and then released.”
The police claim that they arrested Williams and Foy because someone else punched an officer in the face. This is one of the less convincing excuses in the history of law enforcement.
At a news conference on Tuesday, Williams called the NYPD’s account a “bald-faced lie.” He says he never saw anyone punching an officer. An NYPD spokesman later asserted that an officer was hit, though no one is contending that Williams was aware of it.
Even if someone did punch a police officer as Williams and Foy were en route to a luncheon at the Brooklyn Museum, how would that justify arresting the two public servants who didn’t even witness the crime? The video shows Foy retreating as he tries to explain himself to the officers. [HT: Atlantic Online.]
This year’s parade was marred by at least two separate shootings, and no doubt the police were on edge, but that doesn’t explain why police targeted two nonviolent men with official ID.
“We do have to acknowledge that if I did not look the way I look – young, black, with [dreadlocks] and earrings… we are sure that things would have been handled differently,” Williams said.
Williams makes a compelling case. We know the men had ID that satisfied NYPD officers at not one, but two checkpoints. Bill di Blasio, who also the same ID, but is white, says he managed to negotiate the same checkpoints without police interference.
We are accustomed to hearing hypothetical claims about how a situation would have been handled if the racial dynamics had been different – this time we actually have control groups.
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