In the Media

After Cop Murders, Police Reform Movement Ponders Next Steps

The assassination of two police officers brought a new wave of backlash for the movement to reform how the NYPD interacts with communities of color.
01/05/2015
New York Observer

The same New York City Council that blocked Broadway to protest the Eric Garner decision and pretended to die before a legislative meeting now assembled en masse to emphasize just how much they loved the police.

The NYPD Is Taking a Holiday from Arresting People

01/02/2015
Vice
December saw New York City on edge to an extent it probably hasn't been since 9/11. Ignited by the decision to not indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, the city has been swallowed protest, counter-protest, death, and despair, culminating in what has become a political showdown between Mayor Bill de Blasio and the NYPD, with the rest of us in the middle unsure of what to do.

NYPD Strategy: Be Strict on Small Crimes to Deter Major Ones; Critics Say Policy Targets Blacks

Critics say the “broken windows” approach that New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton is defending is nothing but a regurgitation of the stop-and-frisk policy that targeted African-American and Hispanic men.
12/31/2014
The Root

New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton is defending his department’s use of the “broken windows” strategy, which, as Al-Jazeera reports, is “the practice of cracking down on minor offenses” because if they go unchecked, the argument goes, “they create visible signs of public disorder that encourage more serious crimes.”

New York police engage in ‘virtual work stoppage’ amid rising tension

Officers appear to slow down enforcement of low-level offenses
12/31/2014
Al Jazeera America

Arrests and summonses in New York City have dropped off precipitously, in what appears to be a deliberate work slowdown by the local police force amid heightened tension between New York Police Department officers and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio.

From Dec. 22 to Dec. 27, police made 66 percent fewer arrests than they had during the same period last year. Criminal court summonses were down 94 percent, as were summonses for traffic violations.

Today's Protests are Centuries in the Making

12/29/2014
Gotham Gazette

The tragic deaths of Eric Garner, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu offer New Yorkers an opportunity to have a real conversation about our city's sordid racial history. Racial politics may have come a long way in a city that prides itself on multiculturalism and progressivism, but community memories are long, and discussing the past must be part of moving forward. Mayor de Blasio recently acknowledged that some of the conflicts that have surfaced in recent weeks "go back centuries in their origins."

The Long Blue Line: 20,000-Plus Officers Pay Final Respects to One Who ‘Represented Best Values’

Vice President, Governor, Mayor Offer Tributes
12/29/2014
The Chief

More than 20,000 cops—significant numbers of them from other states—turned out Dec. 27 as the city paid its final respects to Rafael Ramos, the NYPD officer whom Police Commissioner William J. Bratton described as having “represented the best of our values” before he and Wenjian Liu were murdered by a crazed gunman outside a Brooklyn housing project seven days earlier.

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