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    dothedewAndy Cush
    8/31/15 4:36pm

    I smoke weed on the streets of midtown Manhattan every day but I wear a suit and am white and I have no fear of the police harrassing me. There are not only 2 Americas, there are 2 NYCs. Fuck the Police (and the Mayor).

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      DarthPumpkindothedew
      8/31/15 4:40pm

      Never been to NYC, but I remember reading that de Blasio was going to be the good mayor! What happened there?

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      dothedewDarthPumpkin
      8/31/15 4:44pm

      It didn’t take.

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    gramercypoliceAndy Cush
    8/31/15 5:02pm

    A couple of interesting things in the New Yorker piece: Throughout, Bratton bashes the stop-and-frisk policy, but distinguishes it from the ‘broken windows’ approach. I think some people conflate the two.

    Also, Bratton is sending his cops to training on how to treat people with respect, even though he admits a 3-day class isn’t going to reverse 150 years of NYPD habits and behavior. But he is reacting to surveys showing that very high percentages of people — especially people of color, but not exclusively — don’t trust the police or believe they are protecting their neighborhood.

    I’m not a fan of Bratton, but it was interesting to see how much he defends DeBlasio against people who might long for a return of Giuliani or stop-and-frisk. I think the quotes in the post above are a little misleading, since Bratton doesn’t seem nearly as blithe about the treatment of someone like Eric Garner in the overall article than a reasonable person might infer from those brief excerpts.

    And, let’s be honest, he also has to deal with Patrick Lynch, the union leader, who has a very different agenda and job than Bratton has, so Bratton — even if he wanted to, which he does not — couldn’t just say, “We’re changing our policing policies from this day forward.” The union, obviously, would not support or go along with that, and it’s going to take a lot of work to rectify a lot of the problems. The trick is going to be convincing community leaders that they even want to rectify things, and win their trust and cooperation so the NYPD can police all neighborhoods rather than occupying and mistreating a small number of them.

    Given a stark choice, I think most people would take ‘broken windows’ over ‘stop and frisk’. But it’s not applied fairly at all so the distinction understandably gets lost on most people and that has to change.

    I also have to ask, why don’t they think that drivers running down pedestrians and cyclists is a ‘quality of life’ crime? Because the city as a whole — police, DMV, D.A, you name it — doesn’t seem to give a shit how many people die as long as car and truck drivers are the killers.

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      Emerald D.V.gramercypolice
      8/31/15 5:46pm

      I also have to ask, why don’t they think that drivers running down pedestrians and cyclists is a ‘quality of life’ crime? Because the city as a whole — police, DMV, D.A, you name it — doesn’t seem to give a shit how many people die as long as car and truck drivers are the killers.

      They’d be perfectly happy to run down pedestrians and cyclists left and right because they drive everywhere and non-drivers just get in the way.

      Look at de Blasio and Bratton screaming about reopening all of Times Square to car traffic. Who does this benefit? How is that a “liberal” position in any way?

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      ARGHTHEHUMANITYgramercypolice
      8/31/15 5:53pm

      I still think DiBlasio should can the entire PD and replace them with a corporate police force until a new public force could be trained. The NYPD is broken.

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    CryptidAndy Cush
    8/31/15 5:22pm

    There is no question that the implementation of Broken Windows policing in New York has disproportionately targeted the poor and minorities, but the underlying theory behind it is surprisingly non-essentialist, based on the premise that small contextual cues have more influence on the crime rate than personal background. I only wonder if there is any way to bridge the gap between the admirable theory and the oppressive practice when it seems that many law officers regard any black person in public as a Broken Window.

    If we believe that this approach has lowered the crime-rate dramatically (which many do not) at the expense of harrying the people who can least sustain it, then what is the Broken Windows approach to police racism? What kind of small routines and signals can Bratton’ s people concoct to change the way that his policy behaves in practice so that it better fits his stated intentions?

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      MyTVNeverLiesCryptid
      9/01/15 1:05am

      There’s a difference between somebody minding there own business, and the squeegee guys/aggressive panhandlers that get in peoples faces.

      I’d like to go to the 7/11 on the corner right now, but I just don’t feel like running that gauntlet. That’s a real quality of life issue.

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      CryptidMyTVNeverLies
      9/01/15 2:14am

      No one is saying that it’s simple. Aggressive panhandling is definitely a quality of life issue, often bordering on intimidation, but then homelessness and unemployment are a quality of life issue for some of the people out there doing these things. And part of the problem with Broken Windows is that it targets illegal income in a city that is not adequately ramping up shelters and job placement services to give people a good alternative. Police are deployed as a non-economic solution to the worsening economic problem of income inequality, and so are teachers in a different way. The immense political scrutiny on these professions often amounts to blaming workers for the impossible task of upholding justice and equal opportunity contrary to fact. We can’t allow crime just because the people committing them are getting screwed, but thinking of policing only in its own terms ignores other kinds of injustice that we have a collective responsibility to address. Which is to say, you right, but blah blah blah.

      And arrests are not the only way to deal with minor infractions. Evanston, the suburb of Chicago, dealt with a serious panhandling problem (with a big population of con artists living comfortable lives and diverting those stray dollars away from the actual homeless) by putting people on the street whose job was to interrupt the routine so that people could move on without paying to end the badgering. It mostly worked there, but it might not in a bigger city.

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    NewYorkCynicAndy Cush
    8/31/15 4:41pm

    And this is what I find most frustrating about the conservative argument that de Blasio is hellbent on bringing us back to the bad old days. Bratton implemented broken windows under Giuliani. Conservatives want aggressive policing. De Blasio reappointed Bratton.

    There is quite literally nothing a liberal politician can do to make these fucking people happy.

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      TreasureValleyNewYorkCynic
      8/31/15 4:52pm

      De Blasio is not a liberal politician, just another centrist Democrat that spits a good game, but come governing time - it’s the same old Bullshit

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      j4x_NewYorkCynic
      9/01/15 7:07am

      That’s not true.

      Democrats can continue to do what they have for decades: embrace the “tough-on-crime” mentality while tossing aside all principles held by “liberals”.

      WARBLE

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    StrangeVoicesAreSayingAndy Cush
    8/31/15 4:36pm

    You know, you sign up to live in a liberal city, you vote in the “crazy progressive” and then you get this. Is there anywhere in this country I can get go to get some fucking socialism and reason? Seriously, I’m moving to Christiania.

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      Emerald D.V.StrangeVoicesAreSaying
      8/31/15 4:39pm

      Seattle managed to get a real socialist into the city council, but Amazon could probably buy the local government outright if it wishes, nevermind that “progressivism” doesn’t always mean a lack of racism. You’re out of luck.

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      StrangeVoicesAreSayingEmerald D.V.
      8/31/15 4:55pm

      You make an excellent point. Progressivism definitely doesn’t mean lack of racism. But it’s at least the start a framework for addressing it. The alternative is even worse.

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    nopunin10didAndy Cush
    8/31/15 4:36pm

    I think that interpretation of the Garner scenario leaves out one piece. It wasn’t only that he was being arrested; the violent manner of the arrest was the issue. If the officer had done his job, Garner would have been issued the citation and still be alive.

    NYPD needs to learn that they can still enforce the law without turning everything into a violent confrontation.

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      BDCBAndy Cush
      8/31/15 4:46pm

      White people want to concentrate risk in minority communities so they can avoid it themselves. Show Me a Hero has been demonstrating this wonderfully and shows why there will be no shortage of Republican voters.

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        BobbySeriousAndy Cush
        8/31/15 4:47pm

        These two pictures tell you all you need to know about who the NYPD are there to protect and serve.....

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