The Militant - October 22, 2012 -- Bronx DA says won’t prosecute stop-and-frisk ‘trespassing’

Vol. 76/No. 38 October 22, 2012

Bronx DA says won’t prosecute
stop-and-frisk ‘trespassing’

BY RÓGER CALERO
BRONX, N.Y.—The district attorney’s office here announced Sept. 26 it will no longer automatically prosecute people charged with trespassing under the New York Police Department’s “Operation Clean Halls” program. The unusual step comes as city and police officials face a class-action lawsuit for constitutional rights violations under the program.

Under “Operation Clean Halls” residents and visitors are stopped and questioned in lobbies, hallways and other areas in public housing developments and private apartment buildings where landlords have enrolled in the program. Many are arrested on bogus charges, often “trespassing” for not producing proof they live in the building—even if they do or are visiting someone.

Instead of rubber stamping piles of trespassing charges, the office of District Attorney Robert Johnson will now require cops to provide some justification.

The suit Ligon v. City of New York was filed March 28 by 13 plaintiffs, all but two of whom are Black residents of the Bronx. It charges the city, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and 17 city cops with numerous rights violations as established under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution against illegal search and seizure; the First and 14th Amendments on the right to association, assembly, and equal protection; the New York Constitution; and the Fair Housing Act; as well as state laws against false arrest, false imprisonment, assault and battery, and malicious prosecution.

“Operation Clean Halls” is part of the NYPD’s broader stop-and-frisk program, which has garnered widespread criticism for its arbitrary racist character. Nearly 700,000 New Yorkers were stopped by the police department last year—87 percent were Black or Latino.

“I disapprove of people being harassed, especially because of their race,” said Erica Rivera, 25, to the Militant, in her apartment building in the Concourse neighborhood in Bronx.

“They come into my building and I don’t even look at them because I am afraid they would stop me,” Juan Martínez, another Concourse resident, told the Militant. Martínez went on to describe how he and his son have been harassed repeatedly by cops posted around the area.

Ariel Siatt, 20, got a citation when he and his friend sat in front of a high school in Brooklyn. “It would take longer to tie your shoes than how long we sat for,” he said. “They jumped on us, and took our college IDs.” Siatt is a student at New York City College of Technology in Brooklyn, and a restaurant worker in Manhattan. He is scheduled to appear in court in two weeks.

Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home