“My 14-year-old son woke up to a gun in his face.”
Wanda, a 48-year-old resident of Jefferson Houses in East Harlem, said masked men recently kicked in her door early in the morning and went to her son’s room. She ran out of the shower, not fully clothed, to find three of them hovering over her son. She screamed.
They were police officers looking for her oldest son, who doesn’t live with her anymore. After handcuffing two of her sons in the living room, she said they called her an expletive and threatened arrest if she didn’t calm down. She was having an asthma attack. The 14-year-old sat on a couch and cried until they left. Wanda said that no reason was given to why they were looking for her other son.
Are you a public housing resident? Your apartment might be next. The NYPD has conducted multiple raids and “gang” sweeps recently and is promising more. Last month in the Bronx, the NYPD and federal agencies like the Department of Homeland Security launched the biggest gang raid in city history, netting 120 suspects in a housing development. Police said a man fell to his death as he tried to run away.
In a bid for less violence and “precision policing,” as Commissioner Bill Bratton has called it, police are using big shows of force to carry out sweeps. Many public housing families, however, say law enforcement casts too wide a net. Two reasons for concern: police and prosecutors alone decide who gang members are and the media label them “gangbangers” before anyone speaks to a lawyer — let alone sees a trial. Next, conspiracy charges hang long sentences over young people with few resources, forcing many to plead out. This reeks of questionable policing and a rush to judgment.
Using charges under federal RICO laws designed to take down the Italian mafia is an overreach. Raids aren’t only imprecise, terrorizing residents who already have reasons to distrust police, but they are done instead of community-building alternatives, like abundant youth programming and employment resources.
It seems we’re willing to tolerate a growing amount of collateral damage while the NYPD launches military-style raids in NYCHA.
That can’t be the answer.
Josmar Trujillo is a trainer, writer and activist with the Coalition to End Broken Windows.
