FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 21.2011
Civil Disobedience in Harlem Demands:
STOP NYPD’S STOP & FRISK
STOP NYPD’S STOP & FRISK
Who: Cornel West, Professor, Author, Public Intellectual
Carl Dix, Revolutionary Communist Party
Rev. Stephen Phelps, Interim Senior Minister of Riverside Church
Rev. Earl Kooperkamp, Rector of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
Debra Sweet, Director of World Can’t Wait
Rev. Omar Wilks, Unison Pentecostal Church
Prof. Jim Vrettos, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Elaine Brower, Military Mom and World Can’t Wait
Carl Dix, Revolutionary Communist Party
Rev. Stephen Phelps, Interim Senior Minister of Riverside Church
Rev. Earl Kooperkamp, Rector of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
Debra Sweet, Director of World Can’t Wait
Rev. Omar Wilks, Unison Pentecostal Church
Prof. Jim Vrettos, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Elaine Brower, Military Mom and World Can’t Wait
Joined by “OCCUPY WALL STREET” & others
When: Friday, October 21
1:00 PM Rally at Harlem State Office Building, 125th St. & Adam Clayton Powell Blvd.
1:30 PM Non-Violent Civil Disobedience at the NYPD 28TH Precinct, West 123rd Street & Frederick Douglass Blvd.
New York, N.Y., October 21, 2011 The NYPD’s notorious program of STOP & FRISK will be the target of a new movement of non-violent civil disobedience tomorrow as professor and author Cornel West and Carl Dix of the Revolutionary Communist Party are joined by the Reverend Stephen Phelps (interim senior minister of Riverside Church) and several other clergy, professors, teachers in front of the 28th NYPD precinct in Harlem to stop what has been documented to be a “racist, illegal, illegitimate and unconstitutional policy.”
Last night the General Assembly of OCCUPY WALL STREET voted to endorse this action and participants will be gathering @ 11:00 am at Zuccotti Park to travel to Harlem, pledging: “This Friday we will join Cornel West, Carl Dix and others to go from up against the wall to up in their faces with Stop and Frisk. We are answering the call . . . We are stopping all this, and we need your help doing that!”
According to a New York Civil Liberties Union study, the NYPD is on pace to stop and frisk over 700,000 people in 2011, or more than 1,900 people each day. More than 85%of those stopped and frisked are Black or Latino, and more than 90% of them were doing nothing wrong when the police stopped them.
On August 3, 2011 a Federal Judge rejected an effort by the City of New York to thwart a lawsuit filed by The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) that challenges the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk policy and practices. In a statement issued earlier this year CCR said that “for many children being stopped by the police on their way home from school has become a normal after school activity and that is a tragedy.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and State Senator Eric Adams called for a federal probe of the policy, saying that it is “emblematic of a police culture that disregarded the civil rights of young black and Hispanic men.”
A New Uncompromising Movement Against Stop and Frisk Begins Today
In calling for this action Cornel West & Carl Dix wrote: “… that if you are shocked to hear that this kind of thing happens in this so-called land of freedom and democracy – it does happen all the damned time – you need to JOIN US too – you can’t stand aside and let this injustice be done in your name.” Today’s action is just the beginning … this will continue and spread until stop and frisk is stopped!
A young teacher participating in the civil disobedience tomorrow has written: “I am doing this for mothers, like my own, who have to raise their sons to be docile and complacent with police injustice, knowing that speaking up only means more trouble. . . I do this for the youth, like the ones I teach, who are offered no options under this system, treated as criminals the moment they mature, and who have come to see themselves that way. No parent should have to raise their child this way; no child should have to grow up this way.”
Participants will also attend Saturday’s 2:00 pm rally at Union Square, part of a National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation.
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Endorsed by: Charles J. Alexander, Ph.D, UCLA Division of Undergraduate Education; Afrika Bambaata and the Zulu Nation; Rev. Luis Barrios, John Jay College of Criminal Justice; Herb Boyd, journalist, author, Harlem NY; Eve Ensler, playwright, creator of V-day; Brian Figueroux, Esq.; Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist; Nicholas Heyward, Father of Nicholas Heyward, Jr. who was killed by police; Sikivu Hutchinson, author; IGNITE (Hunter College); Lawrence Lucas, Our Lady of Lourdes RC Church; Cynthia McKinney, former Congressperson; Efia Nwangaza, Malcolm X Center, Greenville, SC; October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression & the Criminalization of a Generation (NY Ctm); Allene Person, mother of Timur Person who was killed by NYPD; Michael Ratner, President Emeritus Center for Constitutional Rights; Bill Quigley, Loyola Law New Orleans; Mark Lewis Taylor, Princeton UniversityTheological Seminary; Sunsara Taylor, writer Revolution Newspaper and World Can’t Wait Advisory Board; Mary Watkins, Ph.D., psychology professor and author, Santa Barbara CA; Clyde Young, revolutionary communist and former prisoner; Juanita Young, mother of Malcolm Ferguson who was killed by NYPD
Contact: Elaine Brower 917 520 0767; Steve Yip 917-868-6007 Joan Hirsch 917-520-9693