Crossposted from ProudToBeAFilthyLiberalScum.com
You know what the NYPD hates more than anything? They hate people videotaping them doing their jobs. Why? Because, for some reason, they seem to think their job entails harassing minorities without cause.
Tired of the abuses being carried out under Mayor Bloomberg’s controversial “stop and frisk” policy in which the number of stops of young minority men somehow exceeds the number of actual young minority men in the city, two private citizens, Matthew Swaye, 35, and Christina Gonzalez, 25 have taken to recording video of the unjustified stops. This has made them Public Enemy #1 as far as the NYPD is concerned.
To combat the terrible threat of two regular people exercising their First Amendment rights in a free country, the NYPD has labeled them “professional agitators” and crafted a poster that bears a remarkable resemblance to a wanted poster.
True Desperadoes.
Curiously, the couple has never been arrested for their camera work. They’ve been arrested several times for Civil Disobedience (aka being a pain in the ass of the 1%) but that’s what has the police all hot and bothered.
According to DNAinfo.com:
“Be aware that above subjects are known professional agitators,” read the flier, which contained the NYPD shield and a seal of the NYPD’s Intelligence Division. It also gave the home address of the couple and featured a side-by-side mugshot from previous civil disobedience arrests.
“Above subjects MO is that they video tape officers performing routine stops and post on YouTube,” the sign reads. “Subjects purpose is to portray officers in a negative way and too [sic] deter officers from conducting there [sic] responsibilities.”
(BTW, [sic] means that the misspellings were from the original document. I just found that out recently and that’s one to grow on!)
Home address? Why would that need to be on this faux-wanted poster? Two reasons: first, it alerts the neighbors that they have “professional agitators” in their midst. For the uninformed, this sounds suspiciously like “terrorists” or just plain old criminals. The intent was obviously to ostracize the couple in thier own community.
The second, and far more insidious, point was to send a very clear message: “We know where you live. Go ahead; record us beating up some black kid and post it on Youtube. We can find you whenever we want.” Pure police state intimidation of the kind we used to whisper about existing in the Soviet union. These days it’s just standard practice for Bloomberg’s “private army.”
Who watches the watchers? No one if they have any say in it.
Sign up to have all the AddictingInfo you can handle delivered directly to your email here!
Feel free to tell me what a terrible person I am on Facebook, at my home blog or follow me on Twitter @FilthyLbrlScum
“For the uninformed, this sounds suspiciously like “terrorists” or just plain old criminals. The intent was obviously to ostracize the couple in thier [sic] own community.”
(Just a little good-natured ribbing. Honestly, I love your site. Keep up the good work.)