I woke up Saturday morning to a message informing me that my best friend had been arrested for possession of marijuana and disorderly conduct. It was the beginning of a long day that would erase any remaining faith I had in the criminal justice system in New York City.
According to my friend, he was on his way to a party in Bushwick, Brooklyn with two friends, when they stopped in a doorway to light a cigarette. Suddenly, two plainly dressed men jumped out of an unmarked car and attacked them, throwing them against the wall and beginning to pat them down but never even stating they were police officers. My friend, terrified he was being mugged or kidnapped, begged to at least see Police ID. He then alleges that the man said “Here’s my ID”, producing handcuffs. Having no indication that these were actually police officers, they screamed to an onlooker to call the police and tried to run.
The “officers” (who still had failed to produce any form of identification) unzipped a closed pocket in Joey’s jacket and revealed the only incriminating thing he had with him; an empty pipe. Although there was resin in the pipe, which constitutes possession, in New York State possession of marijuana is a ticket violation, not even a misdemeanor. Despite this, cops dressed in actual uniforms then showed up and brought Joey and his friend to jail (their other friend had managed to run away).
Joey states that he was thrown to the ground during the arrest, and that the officers more than once called him “faggot”. Both his and his friend’s wrists are scraped and bruised from the arrest. There was no grounds to have searched them in the first place. There was no reading of rights.
Joey and his friend then spent a full 24 hours in jail. They slept on the ground in a crowded cell. They told me they were forced to urinate in front of a camera, in a toilet that was spattered in vomit and blood, and that the only food they were served was considered inedible by all of the inmates. They also said at one point, their access to water was cut off as a disciplinary device; an officer removed it and said “One person screwed it up for everyone”.
Joey also said that a conversation between inmates about the 72-hour holding limit before arraignment was interrupted by an officer who laughed and said “We can keep you here for as long as we want; it’s called the Patriot Act”.
It was confirmed by their defender that they should NEVER have been brought in for such minor charges, not even to mention that their entire arrest process was in violation of the Constitution. When they finally went before a judge they were released immediately, and no charges are being held against them.
But doesn’t that 24 hours in jail still seem like harsh punishment for standing on a stoop?
I know that this happens every day. What kind of city are we living in where a young person can’t walk down the street without fear that an agent of their own government may attack them? Instances like these are symptomatic of a broken system that allows much more serious offenses like the Amadou Diallo shooting to occur. We need to take action now to fix this system from it’s roots, not wait for more murders to happen before the public pays attention.
