For Immediate Release

July 30, 2020

Lambda Independent Democrats of Brooklyn Condemn NYPD

Violent Arrest of Homeless Transgender Teenager

When New Yorkers witnessed in horror as federal agents in Portland arrested protesters in unmarked vans, Mayor DeBlasio took to Twitter to declare that “We won’t let it happen here.”

On July 28th, it happened here.

At the corner of 2nd Ave & 25th Street in Manhattan, Nikki Stone, an 18-year old activist present at the Occupy City Hall protests, was forced into an unmarked van by a warrant squad in what appeared more as a kidnapping than an arrest. Stone was accused by the NYPD of spray painting the lenses of 6 police cameras in late July, an offense considered serious enough by plainclothes officers to justify throwing the teenager to the ground before forcing her into a vehicle in a manner that appeared intended to ignite anger among onlookers. The act itself is heinous and the NYPD’s defense of it is absurd.  Their course of thought is that the public should expect a group of random strangers appearing out of a van and forcing oneself into a vehicle must require full compliance, just in case the strangers are the cops.

It was only a month ago that the NYPD assaulted several protesters at the Queer Liberation March. The police-sanctioned violence against queer people, especially transgender people like Nikki Stone, serves only as reminder that, despite their many competency trainings, the NYPD does not consider nor prioritize the safety and dignity of queer people. We have not forgotten, as Brooklyn’s LGBTQ+ Democratic Club, that 32 members of the City Council voted for a city budget that barely made a dent in the NYPD’s funding. 32 members of the City Council voted to continue the police’s violence against New Yorkers. The police will not learn from their violence, even when called out on it. As an NYPD whistleblower stated in 2013:

            “They don’t care about CCRBs. They don’t care about how many times you got sued. They don’t care how many times you violate people’s rights. They just want your production numbers… If you’re a good producer and you do what you’re told, you’ll get promoted, you'll get to these specialized units, and you’ll be forgiven for all your past sins.”

There will be no at-will internal change to the NYPD’s institutional violence. There will be no moral awakening among their rank and file officers. Necessary change will only be achieved when the City Council and future City administration defunds the NYPD and find the courage to push back against Police Unions, who will continue to work diligently to defend these aggressive and morally dubious tactics. Not only do we call on the City Council to condemn this recent arrest, Lambda Independent Democrat is unlikely to endorse any 2021 candidate for City Council that does not have in their campaign platform the promise to significantly defund the NYPD.

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