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Posts tagged: Bratton

Jun 18 2014

Favourite quotes of NYPD Officers to me since Bratton’s ‘reign’

“Oh those rules, yeah I know all about those rules, we don’t care about the rules”
“What rules?”
“Heidi, I thought we had an agreement? You wouldn’t sing & I wouldn’t bother you?”
“Oh that that First Amendment thing again, we’ve heard of that, it doesn’t matter, you’re still getting a ticket”
(Lean in & Whispered) “This platform is actually a terrorist target”
“Technically you’re not doing anything illegal, but you still can’t do it”
“I’m gonna give you a ticket ’cause my supervisor wants to see I’m doing something useful, but once I”m gone you can start singing again”
“Have you ever thought of conforming?” #seriously?

copsupbway 

May 25 2014

And over in the UK

And over in London ~ “Police Spokesman: “Unlicensed street performing” contributes to “anti-social behaviour and is a driver of crime” ….  He’s got to be hobnobbing with Bratton to come up with this kind of bs ~

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/londons-best-buskers-row-over-arrest-rages-on-as-community-leader-backs-police-action-9426275.html

leicestersquarebuskers2

May 15 2014

What do NYC Buskers & Alec Baldwin have in common?

Question: What do BYC Buskers and Alec Baldwin have in common?

Answer: Being arrested by Bratton’s rogue army the NYPD for doing nothing!

http://www.bkmag.com/2014/05/14/alec-baldwins-post-arrest-twitter-rant-against-the-nypd-is-pretty-spot-on/

alecbaldwin

Alec Baldwin was arrested yesterday for riding his bike the wrong way up Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. And while we’re strongly anti-salmoning, and have, at best, mixed feelings about Baldwin (wasn’t he going to move out of New York or something?), we also think that it is completely absurd and indicative of troubling police behavior that, instead of receiving a warning or even a ticket, Baldwin was handcuffed and arrested for what amounts to an incredibly minor offense. And so when Baldwin took to Twitter for one of his patented tirades? We read along, and actually found ourselves agreeing with everything he said. (We know! We were surprised too!) 

Following his arrest and subsequent release (Baldwin left with two Criminal Court summonses), the actor used his social media platform to unleash his side of the story. Baldwin claims that he did not ask for special treatment by the officers who pulled him over, and instead acquiesced to being ticketed. However, the officers claimed that he was being belligerent and took Baldwin in for disorderly conduct. Baldwin is clearly indignant that such a minor offense as riding a bike the wrong way has become an arrest-worthy offense, and there’s little doubt that his frustration is in part due to the actor’s not insignificant persecution complex, however (and this is a big however!), Baldwin hits the nail on the head when he notes, “New York City is a mismanaged carnival of stupidity that is desperate for revenue and anxious to criminalize behavior once thought benign.” What? Yes! Wait. We’re agreeing with Alec Baldwin? The world’s gone MAD.

Even if you weren’t one of the people who had particularly high hopes for the return of Bill Bratton as the chief of the NYPD (which we weren’t; we lived through the Giuliani years… RIP Squeegee Men), it still felt pretty good that Ray Kelly and his policies like Stop-and-Frisk and targeting Muslim-Americans were going to disappear. And, hey! De Blasio ran on a progressive campaign, so how bad could Bratton be? As it turns out, pretty bad! Bratton has made it his mission to focus on criminalizing the homeless population, arresting buskers and subway break dancers, and ticketing jay-walkers (read more about it in the Free Cecily! gazette), all of which means that the police—and the city government—are not only looking to make a lot of money off non-violent crimes, but also that the department as a whole is targeting the most helpless segments of the population. This is bullshit, because it both literally and figuratively handcuffs people who are already struggling and frequently have no recourse other than to do what the police say, no matter how inherently stupid. But because the most recent victim of this overzealous police department just so happened to be a notably vocal, social media “savvy” actor, we’re actually hearing about the absurdity of what the NYPD is doing with this reinstatement of the “broken windows” policy of Bratton’s Guiliani-era heyday. Which, we never thought we’d advocate spreading the Gospel of Baldwin, but in this case, the actor is absolutely right: the NYPD doesn’t have New Yorker’s interests at heart, only their own bottom line. And so, if you have a public platform like Baldwin does, it’s important to speak out against this type of thing, because most of the people being targeted will never be heard.

Author – Kristin Iversen

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May 10 2014

What’s been going on Underground and it isn’t pretty ~

The NYC Subways are now silent, void of all music, dance & art. The performers have been moved on, arrested, ticketed & charged with the crime of self expression. It’s a very sad, bleak & lonely place underground since the new police chief, Bratton’s entrance. Every day now when I go under I get either questioned or ticketed or worse. It’s a scary place underground right now with hundreds of  NYPD officers cuffing dozens of people, one after another on a Friday night like tonight. TImes Square has become one huge perp walk. It’s a freaky freaky scene.

Thee is no music, no dance, no laughter, no art. There is only the loud rumble of metal on metal of screeching brakes interspersed with NYPD announcements over the loud speaker of what to b ‘afraid’ of.

To anyone paying any sort of attention, the only thing one needs fear currently is the NYPD.

This reporter nails it. “Commissioner Bill Bratton’s new “quality of life” campaign is seemingly designed to drain New York of character”

https://news.vice.com/article/new-york-citys-cops-are-waging-war-on-subway-performers

subway-wireless-nyc