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[officer] you look very suspicious.
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[Alvin] cause y'all always looking like crazy...
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[sounds of intense physical struggle and yelling]
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[Alvin] Why you pushing me like that for?
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That's exactly how some shit will go down, just like that, just like that.
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People don't like police because of the harrassment,
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and what civilians don't understand
-
is that the police department is like forcing us
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to do these unreasonable stops, or you're gonna get penalized.
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[reporter]
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[commissioner] Well I think that the Mayor is absolutely correct.
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[reporter] Some people are just very hurt by it and upset when they are stopped unnecessarily.
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[commissioner] Well I understand that, some people, y'know,
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you're taking away at the very least, you're taking away people's time.
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So I understand people may not be happy with it,
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but I can also assure you that I go to communities,
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communities of colour, and people want more.
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[reporter] They want more stop-and-frisks?
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[commissioner] Absolutely.
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I had this captain who walked into the precinct
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and gave a speech about harassing the public.
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His words were "we're gonna go out there and we're gonna violate some rights".
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We hear it from the captain down, we want "250s", this is Stop, Question and Frisk.
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[phone dialing]
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I was walking home from my girlfriend's house
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and a cop car went past me.
-
A couple of seconds later I heard the car turn around
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and they just popped out, they just all just jumped out of the car.
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I decided to record it because I was getting stopped a lot
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and I didn't have evidence of a cop being disrespectful or anything,
-
so I pressed the button and recorded the whole thing.
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[Alvin] I just got stopped like 2 blocks away...
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[Alvin] Cause y'all are always lookin at me like crazy...
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[back and forth]
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[officer] Listen to me, listen to me.
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[officer] because you keep doin' that shit, man, we stopped you last time...
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[officer] Who the fuck are you talkin' to??
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[Alvin] You asked me why I had a book bag on...
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[officer] Who the fuck you think you're talkin' to?
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[Alvin] You asked me if I had a book bag on
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[back and forth, officers swearing]
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[Alvin] Why are you touchin' me for?
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[sounds of struggle]
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He was holding me, he's going through pockets, going up, down,
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he's goin through my sweater
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and that's when he told me to keep my hands on my head,
-
so I was like this the whole time.
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[Alvin] What for?
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[officer] Shut your fuckin' mouth kid.
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[Alvin] Why am I being arrested for?
-
[officer] Shut your mouth.
-
[Alvin] What am I being arrested for?
-
He decided to take my hands from here and he put em behind my back like that.
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[officer yelling] Shut your fuckin' mouth!
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[Alvin] You askin' me questions.
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[Alvin] I was...
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[officer] Have some fuckin' respect.
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[Alvin] Cause you always stop me for no reason...]
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[Alvin] Why, why are you pushing...
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[Alvin] You're gonna break my arm?
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[officer] Who's your father? Your father's on the job?
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[officer/s] Shut the fuck up (etc)
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[Alvin] You're gonna punch me in my face?
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[Alvin] ...got a phone...
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[officer] ...in Traffic? He's a Traffic cop?
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[officer] Figures.
-
[officer, mocking] Traffic cop.
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[Alvin] Yep. Don't touch me...
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[sounds of struggle]
-
[Alvin recorded] Why you pushin me like that for?
-
[officer] Shut your fuckin' mouth.
-
[Alvin] Why you pushin me like that for?
-
While they holding me, the sergeant's holding me like this,
-
he's like "i'm gonna break your arm"
-
I'm like, you're gonna break my arm?
-
He's like yeah, and I'm gonna punch you in the face,
-
I was like, you're gonna punch me in the face?
-
He's like yeah, he's like and then I'm gonna arrest you.
-
I'm like, arrest me for what?
-
And he's like, for being a mutt.
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So he grabbed me by my book bag and he started pushin me down,
-
so I'm going backwards down the hill,
-
and he just kept pushing me and pushing me
-
and looked like he was gonna hit me.
-
I feel like they was trying to make me resist, or start fighting back.
-
[recording]
-
[Alvin] Why you pushing me like that for?
-
[officer] I swear to god...
-
[Alvin repeating] Why you pushing me like that?
-
[officer yelling] Take a fucking walk!!
-
...fucking ?.
-
[sounds of intense physical struggle and officer/s swearing]
-
I'm mad just hearing that, like,
-
Not many words really could describe that,
-
it's just disturbing.
-
But that's exactly what happened, like,
-
I can relate to it, cause I know that situation.
-
They just don't got no respect for us,
-
and they wonder why we don't have respect for them.
-
And for them to just call him a name like that,
-
it's just like, that's just crazy.
-
[filmmaker?] Do you think that during stops that some police officers try to provoke,
-
so they can justify an arrest?
-
[officer] Of course they do.
-
A lot of police officers be trying to set civilians off,
-
and then once they start talking, start cursing, they can lock em up for anything.
-
[officer] There was two minorities leaning against the wall, they weren't doing anything,
-
and my sergeant ordered me to write them "blocking pedestrian traffic".
-
If you're a certain ethnicity, standing on the corner,
-
lieutenants, sergeants, they have no problem searching you, violating your rights,
-
and racial profiling.
-
There was one statement that the sergeant said about what he used to do.
-
He used to stop a guy walkin down the street with baggy pants, his underwear hangin out,
-
and he'd just stop him.
-
He says "I know he's probably up to nothin', but I just stop him anyway, just to get a 250"
-
There's this one cop that everybody in the neighbourhood knows,
-
stops us like 3 times already, he was like now come here.
-
So they got out the car, the threw him on the front of the car,
-
I'm still walkin', he spun me around and punched me in my stomach,
-
started just pattin us down, and just left us there.
-
[commissioner] What we're trying to do is make certain that it's done as professionally as possible,
-
that proper respect is shown, and is done according to the law.
-
This goes all the way up, all the way up to commissioner's office,
-
I say even the mayor's office where they're trying to be proactive and say
-
"look, we're stopping people, we're getting guns and drugs off the streets".
-
But it's not. I think it's, of the 600,000 people that were stopped last year,
-
only 1% of those that were stopped were carrying weapons.
-
[clips from newscasts] The NYPD's controversial Stop And Frisk policy...
-
Last year, New York police officers stopped and interrogated people nearly 686,000 times...
-
... a lawsuit raises serious questions about quotas, racial profiling, and constitutional rights...
-
The public isn't aware of what's happening
-
but everything is being looked at as far as numbers,
-
and it's a numbers game, ok?
-
What did you get last year?
-
Well you have to match it and give me more this year.
-
[tape recording]
-
They're trying to keep all of this stuff quiet,
-
so this is my proof that they're putting pressure on me to write summonses.
-
Commanders are trying to be proactive, or show that they're being proactive,
-
and here you have a system where people are told
-
"get those numbers to where they should be, and you're gonna get your promotion."
-
The commanding officer wants to become a deputy inspector,
-
the executive officer wants to become a commanding officer,
-
if you do well by keeping the arrests up and the summonses up,
-
you will be promoted to the next rank.
-
So they put pressure on the police officers to generate numbers and arrests.
-
I mean let's be real, it is a quota.
-
Nobody wants to call it that, but that's what it is.
-
They call it a performance objective, they call it a goal, they can mask it however they want.
-
It's a quota, and it does exist.
-
Some of us under the stress make them up.
-
Some of us under the stress stop innocent people and search them.
-
And there are certain units out there that will just run around and stop everybody.
-
What happens to the officer, if they don't do what the police department tells them to do
-
as far as these quotas?
-
They will come after you.
-
Come after you, meaning transfers, give you low evaluations.
-
They give you unwanted assignments,
-
put you in a post which is very dangerous, high crime, by yourself, in a corner.
-
This is a form of retaliation.
-
Basically, a change in tours, put you on the midnight, they make you look bad on paperwork
-
and that paperwork with trail you for the rest of your police career.
-
And knowing that your livelihood's at stake, you meet the quota.
-
It does create this feeling of "hey listen I gotta get my numbers"
-
When you put that pressure on the officer
-
this us vs them mentality does exist.
-
When I came into this police department I wanted to help people,
-
but the civilian population are being hunted.
-
Instead of being protected by us, they're being hunted, and we're being hated.
-
The police department is pushing the new guys to be bounty hunters,
-
and I use that word because that's exactly what it is:
-
they're hunting.
-
There's a lot of officers who are fed up and want to do something about it,
-
and there's people who are scared.
-
There's a lot of officers that would like to tell their story, but nobody wants to hear the truth.
-
Nobody wants to hear the bad.
-
You need police, but the police department needs to change things.
-
At one point I did want to be a cop, to help people,
-
and mostly just, like, to be able to wear a badge and a uniform, be proud of it.
-
But now I feel like I'm not sure because they're not here to help people any more,
-
they're just there to like, stop and humiliate them, make em feel bad.
-
There's no excuses for the way they treated me.
-
This one individual was thinkin about doin NYPD,
-
the first thing I told him is "definitely not".
-
This job, racial profiles, will force you to do things that you don't wanna do.
-
We're supposed to be the best in the world?
-
We're the best at making money, and we're the best at arresting and summonsing everybody.
Captions Requested
