‘I’m afraid to have a black son in New York city’

From the Guardian here:

Police have said they thought Graham had a gun. The suspicion apparently prompted the officers to follow the teenager to his home and force their way inside. Originally the police said he ran into the building, fleeing from officers who told him to stop. Surveillance footage showed the claim to be untrue. The police also say Haste yelled the word “gun” before he fired a single shot into the 18-year-old’s chest in front of his younger brother and his grandmother.

Graham didn’t have a gun though, and Haste didn’t have the training required to work in the unit to which he was assigned. He and his supervisor, Sergeant Scott Morris, have been stripped of their guns and badges.

Comment:

I haven’t seen much of this story in New York City papers.  I wonder if there’s a reason for this.

I do know New York City is run by a billionaire media mogul.  I wonder if that has any relevance.

Making the trains run on time is one thing, killing unarmed black kids is a whole nother thing.

The NYPD’s behavior under Bloomberg’s reign is the dark underside of his legacy.

NYC stop and frisk is racist policy

http://www.politicker.com/2012/02/15/scott-stringer-and-jumaane-williams-call-for-nypd-to-end-stop-and-frisk/

The NYCLU report showed the NYPD conducted stop-and-frisks 684,330, the highest total since the department began collecting stop-and-frisk statistics in 2002 and a 603 percent increase since that year. About 87 percent of those stopped and frisked were black or Latino.

“This report, I think, makes it very clear that it is time to end this policy of stop and frisk as presently constituted,” Mr. Stringer said. “Communities of people who are caucasian, people who look like me, never worry about their child or grandchild going to the store for a glass of milk. They’re not worried about the police, they welcome the police on their street corner.”

Stop and frisk is a policy that is imposed on minority communities by a racist white community and a racist mayor.

If the majority of white folks weren’t so afraid of black folks and viewed them collectively as being more violent than white people, this policy would be denounced for the piece of shit that it is.

BTW, I’m a white person.

White folks should bitch about NYC stop and frisk

http://www.politickerny.com/2012/01/07/scott-stringer-people-like-me-need-to-speak-out-on-stop-and-frisk/

“I have to say something that we have to put out there with the greatest respect for all New Yorkers,” Mr. Stringer explained. “You cannot close your eyes, as somebody who’s Caucasian, to the fact that of the 700,000 who are stopped, questioned, and frisked, 85% are African-American and Latino.”

Two comments:

1.  Mayor Bloomberg is more than willing to conduct these constitutionally gray areas searches because he’s a psychopath and he’s cultivating that side of the NYPD.

2.  For all those white folks pinheads and Ron Paul supporters, not only are 85% of all those stopped and frisked black, but 85% (or more!) of all crack is smoked by white folks.

Hey, go white folks! Way to make your problem appear to be black folks’ fault.

 

What I did at winter break

If you’re building out a space for a recording studio, you should check this new-ish product Roxul out.  I’m in no way affiliated with the people at Roxul, who might be cool or they might be total bastards.

The styrofoam you see in the pictures was pulled from the trash in New York City to have a more environmentally responsible space.

How Mayor Mike ‘the turtle’ Bloomberg makes the roads dangerous

Hopefully, my readers out there do not have to contend with the camera tickets that we have here in New York City.  You get these little $50 presents from the City in the mail.  It shows your car in a super blurry piece of shit photo saying you ran  a red light.

The last one I received (I’ve gotten two) you could not even tell the color of the traffic light in the photo.  I’m supposed to bend over and take it up the ass for 50 bucks with a piece of shit photo.

I did not know this until I went online and saw there is supposed to be a standard amount of time for a yellow light, but they can shorten it to generate tickets.  Is this something the Bloomie would ever do?  You bet yer ass.

Tickets in New York City are a complete pain in the ass to fight.

So now when I’m driving and I see a yellow light, I immediately slam on the car brakes.  Even if it’s unsafe.  I know I’m not allowed to use my  judgment as to what’s safe and not safe for the roads and I slam on the brakes to avoid the tax.

Regular readers know how much I despise the Mayor and his policies.  This policy is just a continuation of bleeding middle class New Yorkers dry with parking tickets and red light tickets.  Close to $1 billion a year the last I saw.

We’re just hamsters on the wheel — you watch your step or Shrimpie Von Bloomberg will be there telling you not to smoke or eat fatty food or use your own judgment to drive your car.  And he will tax you — he loves that shit.

Don’t eat ham for X-mas to protest NYPD piggishness

http://exiledonline.com/domestic-war-on-press-freedom-nypd-continues-to-harass-arrest-video-streamers-journalists-covering-the-occupy-movement/

Remember how in November, Bloomberg and the NYPD got a lot of heat from the city’s media establishment for the arrest rampage they unleashed on journalists covering the eviction raid on Liberty Plaza? Cops arrested more than two dozen accredited journalists from major news outlets, including the New York Post, NPR, AFP and The Associated Press. Hell, cops even clubbed a couple of reporters for the baggertarian rag The Daily Caller. As a result, New York’s police commissioner made a big show of issuing an order that instructed police officers not to interfere with journalists covering OWS.

But clearly that was just for show.

Because this month the NYPD has gone out of its way to harass and arrest journalists covering OWS, especially targeting live streamers and indie journalists who can’t be counted on for propaganda support like the mainstream folks.

Conclusion:

1.  Bloomberg sucks big time.
2.  He has no problem using the NYPD to stifle coverage of these protests.
3.  A big holiday fuck you to the Mayor.

The Bloomberg/NYPD pig machine

http://stanleyrogouski.com/blog/stanley_w_rogouski/2011/12/how-mike-bloomberg-snatched-my-eyeballs-for-the-department-of-homeland-security.html

Excerpt 1:

The prison industrial complex creates degraded human beings and then congratulates itself on its ability to protect the rest of society from those degraded human beings it creates. This allows the police officer to justify his existence. The lower his opinion of humanity in general, the more the police officer can congratulate himself on doing his job, on “just following orders.” The more dangerous the world is, the more we need a powerful, militarized police force.

Excerpt 2:

Creeping totalitarianism in what should be the most colorful city in America comes off as strangely gray and banal. Kelly, the police commissioner, whose department can now shoot down planes and conduct intelligence operations overseas, and Bloomberg, the Napoleonic little billionaire who was able to spread around enough cash to buy off all opposition to his stealing a third term in office, have successfully convinced most New Yorkers that they and only they can make the trains run on time.

Comment:  Read the whole post, he gets into some good shit.  I had many of the same feelings when I spent a night in jail for riding my bike on the sidewalk.

They held me at the precinct on bullshit so I couldn’t get in to night court and get out.  They do it to be assholes, because a lot of cops enjoy being assholes.

How to get a better Mayor Bloomberg

Most New Yorkers probably saw Mayor Bloomberg’s latest fantasy to chop half the teachers at the New York public schools and pay twice as much to the remaining half.

Which once again shows the Mayor is not only about money, he will gladly pay the same amount to destroy thousands of teacher jobs.

It occurred to me that maybe Mayor Bloomberg’s remaining bonus third term, which I’m totally enjoying by the way, would go better if someone cut him in half.  Maybe some sort of John Belushi samurai sword number.

I love our local dictator but I could really use about half of what his piehole has for the world these days.

Why shit is fucked up and bullshit

Yesterday I dropped my two boys at school.  We commute to school on bikes — one in a seat behind me and one on his own bike.

I’m starting to bike home and a car turns onto the block I’m on.  He’s going over 40mph and fast enough that his tires made a sound when he made the turn.  I’m already in the street and I turn back to the sidewalk when he comes barrel assing through.

I’m biking by one of the local folks on the block who says that was a really unsafe speed to drive on this small 1-block long street.  I see the car is pulled over up the block as he has business going on, so I decide to have a civilized word with the guy.

If he works on the block then he knows there’s a school on the block and he sees all the children crossing the street to go to school.

I bike up to the guy and tell him that what he did was really unsafe and there’s a school on the block.

He tells me he wasn’t speeding and that don’t I know how to ride a bike as I was not crossing the street at the corner.  He knows what he did was unsafe, he had a brain, he didn’t expect anyone to say anything so he reaches for some street hustle kind of strategy and blames me for not factoring his excessive speed into my bike riding.

I feel my blood pressure rising — you endanger my body and then blame me for not riding my bike properly?

I ride with my hardened steel bike chain looped on my front handle bars just for these occasions.  I take the bike chain off my handle bars and I tell him if I see him driving like that on the block again I’m gonna take my chain to his car first and then to his face.

The lack of humility is stunning.  Someone tells you you did something unsafe and you can’t acknowledge that and apologize and have to escalate it.  I see this all the time.

Has the ass whoopin’ been equal?

I’ve been following the Occupy thing pretty closely, and as someone who has not gone to any protest but is sympathetic it would appear that bad behavior by the police has substantially outstripped bad behavior by protesters.

It appears to be a disproportionate response and really ugly.

Don’t you call out the riot police when there’s a riot?

Additionally aren’t you somewhat provoking a riot when you call riot police into a non-riot atmosphere?  I think so.