In True 'Stop and Frisk' Fashion, New Jersey Police Admit to Targeting Minority Neighborhoods in What They Call 'Hunting at the Border'

By Zack Linly, The Root

16 February 20

 

n today’s Water is Wet News we find, once again that when police are sent to target civilians at random, black and Latino people will overwhelmingly represent the victimized. The nation saw a prime example of this in the form of New York City’s stop-and-frisk policy which was first overseen by then-mayor and now U.S. presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg and targeted black and Latino people disproportionately by anywhere from 70 to 90 percent during its existence.

Well, now we’re seeing the same type of hunting expedition done again; this time, in New Jersey.

According to an investigation by NBC New York’s I-Team, officers in the North Brunswick Police Department targeted black and Latino neighborhoods in order to fulfill ticket quotas and rack up overtime pay. This was done in accordance with an unofficial policy that was widely understood in the department, police say. And just in case you thought I was being hyperbolic in my choice of the words “hunting expedition,” this act of racial profiling was literally termed “hunting at the border” as the practice was carried out at the border between North and New Brunswick and other roads that minorities are known to travel heavily.

Officer Mike Campbell spoke with the I-team about this infuriatingly racist ass shit the practice which went on for almost a decade, according to NBC News.

“For every 40 tickets written, that would be a minimum of 4 hours overtime, even if you ended up going to court for five minutes,” said Campbell adding that there was no official policy, only an unwritten understanding in the Department.

Another officer, who asked the I-Team to conceal his identity, said, “Guys were going out. They were competing for how many tickets each guy could get.”

A different cop, also unidentified said in reference to the practice’s nefarious moniker, “They’re saying they’re going out hunting. You go to traffic court and you see the impact. 90% of the people you see there are blacks and Latinos.”

If the recollections of actual officers admitting to these egregious acts weren’t enough to piss you all the way off, 24-year-old Najaer Brown, one of several repeated victims of the unofficial policy who spoke to reporters, talked about how his life as been derailed by it after he was issued a ticket over a seat belt initially, before it escalated over missing court dates.

“I had got a warrant that I didn’t know about,” he said. “Just came back from school. Got pulled over, they locked me up.”

His license was revoked shortly after.

“I have a car — had a car. Can’t use it because I don’t have a license,” Brown said adding that his grandmother now has to drive him everywhere.

Officer Campbell said he became so disturbed what he was seeing in his department that he began filing freedom of information requests. He says that at an executive session of the council in the fall of 2009 there was a discussion on “Why ticket writing is so down.” 

“That’s when you started hearing more of writing summonses,” Campbell said.

A fellow officer added, “In order for guys to get to that quota faster, they would go in and write ‘license plate light,’ “license plate bracket,’ ‘headlight out,’ ‘something hanging from the mirror.’”

To make matters worse (because that’s surprisingly possible) some people who were targeted say they received multiple tickets after a single stop. From NBC New York:

Several people at traffic court told the I-Team they received several tickets during one stop and all stated they were pulled over in neighborhoods that the cops we spoke to identified as a prime “hunting” locations.

The claims of the North Brunswick officers echo those made by members of the NYPD 12: 12 New York City officers who sued the Department in 2016 over alleged racial quotas. One Detective told the I-Team: “At the end of the month, you go hunting for blacks and hispanics.” The NYPD denies quotas ever existed.

Campbell said the reward incentive program in North Brunswick began in earnest in 2010 and continued until 2018 when news broke of a similar reward scandal involving the Palisades Parkway Police.

“The repercussions are still being felt,” he said. “Some people still have warrants. Some are still paying summonses, some have experienced suspensions or they lost their job.” He added he believes minority neighborhoods are still unfairly targeted by enforcement. 

The real question now is: will there be any repercussions for any officers involved in the scheme or if people victimized and still affected by it will be relieved of their burdens.

In a phone interview with the I-Team, Mayor Francis Womack III, said, “Based on what you’re reporting, I have authorized an independent investigation. If summonses were targeted at any particular community, that will be determined through a review. We will do whatever it takes to get to the truth.”

In a statement released Thursday, NBPD (in full, side-eye worthy caucacity mode) said the I-Team’s report “fails to tell the story of well-rounded officers, well balanced North Brunswick police department.”

The department officials pointed to allegations of racial profiling which had been investigated in October by the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office who (allegedly) discovered no criminal activity. It also cited a statement from Mayor Womack in response to the investigation.

“To say that in the United States driver profiling, targeting or ticket quotas in police departments never happened or doesn’t happen is disingenuous and would insult one’s intelligence,” Womack said. “When anyone suggests that it is happening in North Brunswick, the allegations are taken seriously.”

I mean, your own officers are telling a different story, but I’m sure they have some mysterious incentive to lie. *eye-roll*

Kesi Foster, a spokesperson for Communities United for Police Reform, told NBC News that the NBPD, “like too many police departments across the country, is threatening the safety of black and other communities of color by targeting them to fill quotas. Reducing these communities down to numbers to fill a quota is inhumane and unacceptable,” said Foster. “We must remember that with every abusive police interaction, the consequences too often include humiliation, fear and brutality.”

The Longest Strike in America Needs a Political Savior

By Hamilton Nolan, In These Times

16 February 20

 

he longest ongoing strike in America today is happening in the media capital of the world. It involves the people who install and repair the cables that bring the news to many of the most influential people in America. But after three long years, the Spectrum workers of New York City are beginning to feel as though everyone has forgotten about them. For those who soldier on, the fight has become much bigger than a contract dispute. It is a fight that can only be won with a wholesale reimagining of public control over corporate power.

From the very beginning, the strike has been a battle of attrition far more than it has been a negotiation. By the time Charter acquired Time Warner Cable in 2016 and rebranded it as Spectrum, the company’s 1,800 unionized cable technicians, members of IBEW Local 3, could sense trouble. “Leading up to that time, we saw changes happening in the company, where they went away from customer service,” says Troy Walcott, a 20-year Spectrum veteran and a union shop steward. “They were doing things for increasing stock prices, as opposed to customer service.”

The new owners struck a hostile pose towards the union. They showed little interest in meaningful contract negotiations. Workers say that Charter also began imposing stricter disciplinary rules, and making changes in the metrics used to evaluate employees and in internal training programs, making it harder to advance within the company. They also seemed to show less interest in long-established union-negotiated procedures. “Their attitude was: Do what I say, and you can grieve it later,” says Chris Fasulo, a Spectrum technician since 2010. “If we said, ‘I can’t drive this truck, it has a broken windshield,’ they’d say, ‘Do it, and you can file a grievance.’”

In March of 2017, at odds over retirement and health benefits, the union went on strike. The company proceeded to hire outside contractors to do the work of the technicians, and the two sides remained doggedly opposed. After a year, the company launched a bid to decertify the union, using a former supervisor who the union says dropped into the role of a technician in order to file a challenge, trying to convince workers to give up on union representation entirely. That decertification attempt, marked by claims of coercion and unfair labor practices, remains mired in the bureaucratic morass of the National Labor Relations Board. Meanwhile, the strike drags on. 

It is hard to be on strike for a week. It is hard to be on strike for a month. To be on strike for three years is superhuman. As the calendar has turned, Spectrum workers have exhausted strike funds, exhausted their savings, and become desperate. Some have crossed the picket lines and returned to their old jobs. Estimates among workers vary, but they say that close to half of the original strikers are still out. Those who hold the line do whatever they can to survive. Troy Walcott, who does not have any kids to support, drives Uber. But as a shop steward, he hears all of the stories of suffering. “You see people losing their homes, losing their cars, losing their jobs, losing their relationships with their wives, breaking down constantly… the longer it stretches out, the harder it gets for people,” he says. “When I get those calls, it affects me like it was me.”

This is the reality for workers striking against a company that wants to break the union. The choices are grim: Cross the picket line, pursue part time hustles in hopes of a resolution, or get a new full time job—starting over from square one, even if you’ve had decades of experience as a Spectrum employee. Every option is painful. Chris Fasulo loved his job. “When you go out and get some old lady’s phone working, it puts a smile on your face,” he says. This month, for the first time, he came close to being unable to pay his mortgage. The memory of the good times helps him carry on. “Sometimes you feel  a little lonely, but you’ve got to have faith. I put everything into this strike.”

It is clear that the Spectrum strike will not be won with a little more time, or a few more picket signs. Shaking the company’s intransigence will require political power. The workers are putting their hopes in two plans: First, they hope to torpedo the franchise agreement that New York City grants Spectrum to operate in the city, which is up for renewal this summer. While there is ample political reason to kick Spectrum out of a city that famously bills itself as “a union town,” such a move would certainly spark a legal fight, since franchise agreements are supposed to be renewed on the basis of the company’s ability to provide adequate service, rather than serving as political referendums on cable companies, all of which are more or less despised by the public. Laura Feyer, a deputy press secretary in the New York Mayor’s office, says that “this Administration strongly supports the striking workers,” but adds, “Like all cable franchise agreements, Spectrum’s is governed by federal law, which has strict guidelines regarding when a franchise can and cannot be renewed.” (A Spectrum spokesman noted that “hundreds of former strikers” have returned to work, and said “we are in compliance with our New York City franchise.”)

It is not like the company has a sterling record and high popularity among its cable customers. In fact, the New York attorney general’s office in 2018 reached a $174 million settlement with Charter for misleading customers about internet speeds. Those charges, though, could not be used as a basis for not renewing Spectrum’s cable franchise. It will be difficult to convince the City of New York to kick out Spectrum when there are few other attractive options for providing cable service to the city’s millions of customers. 

And that is where the union’s other idea comes in. The striking Spectrum workers are proposing a “public option” for cable service—a publicly owned internet service provider in New York City, run by the Spectrum workers but owned by a million New Yorkers, who would collectively provide the capital for the new venture. The Spectrum workers envision rebuilding the city’s infrastructure and running the company as a co-op, under the auspices of Bill de Blasio’s much-touted “Internet Master Plan,” which aims to make broadband service universal. It is an idea with undeniable appeal, considering how universally despised cable companies are by consumers. But the same could be said about socialized medicine. It’s making it a reality that’s the hard part. The mayor’s office calls it, rather noncommittally, “an interesting idea that the Administration will look into.” Until there is a realistic line on billions of dollars of investment capital, it is hard to see the public option as a near-term solution to the daily pain of the Spectrum strike.

A group of several hundred cable workers, gutted by three long years of financial and personal sacrifice, cannot have a fair fight with a roughly $111 billion telecom company. The Spectrum strikers are a case study in how stark the differences are between traditional local union power and the power of a modern mega-corporation. In December, they held a rally on the steps of New York City Hall, marking 1,000 days on strike. They were joined by a host of local and state politicians vowing to support them. But talk is cheap. Unless the Charter/Spectrum franchise in New York is actually rejected, or a serious financing campaign is mounted for the costly “public option,” the outlook for those who have stuck with the strike is bleak. It is a gut check for the power of the modern labor movement. How much political and economic pressure can working people really bring to bear?

“What do you do when the corporation says F you?” asks Troy Walcott. “They’re tearing us down little by little. If we don’t start to revamp and change the way we’re fighting back against them, we’re gonna lose."