Among those arrested: controversial author and Princeton professor Cornel West, Revolutionary Communist Party spokesman Carl Dix and Riverside Church’s interim senior minister Rev. Stephen Phelps.
After an hour-long rally, protestors marched from the State Office Building on 125th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard to the nearby 28th precinct police station, chanting “Cease and desist, stop stop and frisk” and “We say no to the new Jim Crow; stop and frisk has got to go.”
Jason Harper, a police community affairs officer on duty at the scene, estimated that around 200 people gathered in front of the station.
“The demonstrators were likely arrested on charges of disorderly conduct, blocking pedestrian movement and disobeying lawful orders,” said Harper, who works for the 26th precinct. A police spokesman, however, later said that charges were yet to be determined.
Harper said those arrested could face up to 15 days in jail, but added that he had never heard of those practicing civil disobedience being jailed for very long. Protestors would likely face a court appearance, he said, and could be sentenced to two to three days’ community service.
Many protestors came from Harlem and surrounding neighborhoods, but a large contingent from the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Zuccotti Park participated too. Yesterday night the group’s general assembly voted to endorse the event.
“It’s a good mix of people here,” said Vance Brown, 25, a tutor and Harlem resident, who noted the protest’s diversity. “We’re in this together as victims.”
“This action today is beautiful. It’s about rising up, and not showing fear to police brutality and wrongdoing,” he said. “If we keep up this momentum in the long term, we can change stop and frisk.”
Coty Crayton, a Bronx resident raised in the nearby Grant Houses public housing complex, felt more pessimistic.
“This won’t change much,” he said. “But it’s possible that it may make people more aware, and keep this issue on the agenda.”
According to New York Civil Liberties Union analyses available on its website, the NYPD have stopped and frisked over 360,000 New Yorkers in the first half of this year alone, or roughly 2,000 people a day. The analyses also found that more than 80 percent of those stopped are black or Latino, and that over 85 percent are totally innocent at the time of the search, according to the police department’s own reports.
“We stand here in front of the police department in a spirit of love,” said West shortly before his arrest. “We love everybody, but we zero in on our disproportionately-targeted black and brown bothers.”
The group of activists, religious officials and others gathered Friday and marched from a rally in Harlem to a police precinct.
Police say some demonstrators didn't comply with orders not to block the building's entrance and were arrested on disorderly conduct charges. Police say most of them will be given summonses and released.
Opponents say the stop-and-frisk policy unfairly targets black and Hispanic men. The police department says it's a necessary crime-fighting tool and doesn't target a particular race.
West has been arrested before at protests for causes he supports, including the Occupy Wall Street movement. He says "everybody's got a voice."
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