Residents and organizers in the Sunset Park area of Brooklyn are challenging NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton to show his face at a Town Hall meeting this Wednesday to discuss officers’ beating last week of Sandra Amezquita, 44, who is pregnant.
At a spirited march to the 72nd Precinct on Sept. 27, Amezquita’s family was backed up by hundreds of community supporters, who cited a long history of police abuse and demanded the officers and top brass be held accountable.
Amezquita was hit with batons and thrown stomach-first onto the street by officers from the 72nd Precinct, after she intervened to tell police to stop using excessive force against her son, Jhohan. His face was left severely swollen after the police beat-down and Amezquita claims she saw them plant a knife on him as well.
Amezquita, a Colombian immigrant and mother of four, suffered vaginal bleeding from the incident, and had visible bruises on her belly and arm. She was charged with disorderly conduct and her husband has been charged with assaulting a police officer.
As Saturday’s march wound through Sunset Park, onto the busy commercial area of 4th Avenue, many onlookers and residents clapped in support and joined the chanting.
Speaker after speaker outside the precinct recalled different elements of police misconduct, from the everyday indignities to beatings and the gravest crimes of murder. Among those was Nicholas Heyward Sr., whose 13-year-old son was killed exactly 20 years prior, to the day, by a housing cop during Bill Bratton’s first stint as police commissioner.
A local activist against domestic violence accused the police of “perpetuating the same type of violence in the streets.” In the crowd, one man seethed with anger, challenging a smirking officer to see how he tough he would be without his badge and gun.
A speaker from the Asociación Pro Derechos del Confinado – Ñetas linked the incident to the rebellion in Ferguson, Missouri: “This is not just a neighborhood, or a city problem — it’s a national problem.”
The beating was captured on video by long-time community activist Dennis Flores, a leader of the grassroots organization Grito de Sunset Park.
The video of the incident has gone viral throughout the neighborhood and the city. “Thank God for technology,” expressed Reverend Dr. Herbert Daughtry of the House of the Lord Church. For years, the police have simply fabricated narratives to justify violence and accused their victims of lying. “They always said we were lying, but now no one can deny it.”
So far, the NYPD has only suspended, but not fired the cop involved, nor has he been charged. Commissioner Bratton, who called the family members of police brutality victims “fools” at a town hall meeting in the 1990s, has not aggressively gone after any officers. Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who killed Eric Garner in Staten Island in June, is still not officially suspended or charged.
“Bill Bratton is a disgrace,” Flores said to the crowd, “and he has to be fired.”
Challenging “Broken Windows” tactics
Many speakers blasted the NYPD’s “Broken Windows” theory of policing, which holds that the lowest level transgressions be met with a strong police response so as to convey order and authority. The theory, which was introduced by Bill Bratton under Mayor Rudolf Giuliani in the 1990s, has been falsely credited with bringing down crime rates. Instead, “Broken Windows” became the foundation for Stop-and-Frisk, which stopped millions of New Yorkers without probable cause and a District Judge later ruled was racist and unconstitutional.
Under Mayor De Blasio, who campaigned against Stop-and-Frisk but defends “Broken Windows” police tactics, the number of needless tickets and confrontations have by some estimates surged. Many of these result in police violence, such as the killing of Eric Garner who was stopped supposedly for selling cigarettes. Artyom Matusov, an aide to Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, was recently fired when he tried to expose how Bratton was manipulating the department’s use of force statistics. Matusov has fired a whistleblower complaint.
At Saturday’s rally, community activist Javier Nieves said, “Take that ‘Broken Windows’ policy and enforce it on your own officers. Whenever they mistreat us, they have to be gotten rid of.”
Flores concluded the rally with a hopeful statement, “The balance of forces is changing in the community. The brutal culture of the police cannot be changed, but what is changing is that the people are getting more organized.”
The Grito de Sunset Park’s Town Hall Meeting will take place on Oct. 1, at 6:30 PM at the Sunset Park Recreation Center, 43rd Street & 7th Ave in Brooklyn, NY.
