"They told us we couldn't be here."
"They told us to go home."
"They made us leave."
They say urban youth hide their emotions well, but as I studied their faces, I saw hurt, fear, and dejection. This interaction with the police was clearly a negative one.
While I was thinking of what to say to them, my friend Abdul Malik, (on his way home from the same community meeting), joined us and he too asked the girls what had happened. They repeated their story, and after asking their names and ages (the youngest was ten and the oldest fourteen), Abdul Malik turned to me and said, "I have to address this." He asked me to videotape him and he approached the officers who were now standing in front of the deli, in the spot where the girls previously were.
(Quick aside: Abdul Malik is a community activist, a dedicated anti-violence worker who engages with many of the toughest youth in the neighborhood, a religious leader, and an advocate for justice. He's also twice my size, afraid of nothing, and a little bit more confrontational than me...)
"Excuse me officers," he began, extending his hand. "My name is Abdul Malik, I live in this community and I work with young people here. What was the problem here that you had to tell these girls to go away?"
"Well, there was a group of youth fighting --"
"Was it these girls who were fighting?"
"No, but there were some guys fighting over them --"
"Do you mean the two boys who were play fighting just now? Because I saw that too and they were nowhere near those girls. I'm just trying to understand what reason you had to ask these girls to move."
The officers were starting to look uncomfortable.
"Well, when we have young people standing in groups of three or more we're supposed to tell them to disperse. It's a safety issue -- "
"I'm just trying to understand something here: what threat could these girls - the youngest of whom is ten and the oldest fourteen - possibly pose?"
Abdul Malik continued his line of questioning and we learned that the officers were new on the force, just months out of the academy. They are part of the NYPD's Impact Policing strategy that floods high crime areas with new recruits, sending them on walking tours around the community. We finished the conversation and returned to the girls, who were now laughing and playing with my wife's puppies. Abdul Malik asked the girls to go home and tell their parents what had happened. Their body language changed again. They seemed to shrink and again their eyes were on the sidewalk.
"Wait, wait, wait," he said. "You're not in trouble. Listen, we want you to tell your parents because you didn't do anything wrong and you shouldn't be treated like this. In fact, we're having a family meeting tomorrow evening, and your parents should come if they want to meet other families who are concerned about what's happening."
We sent them off and parted ways. Arriving home, right across the street from the 40 Precinct, I felt a mixture of anger, sadness, frustration, and hope. I was angry that starting from such a young age, children in our neighborhood - and in communities of color across the city - are subject to police harassment, intimidation, and sometimes brutality. I was sad that these rookie officers - who could have used this moment to start building friendly relationships with youth - are instead being directed to treat every young person like a criminal. I was frustrated that these policing strategies do absolutely nothing to stop the violence that resulted in the shooting of 4-year old Lloyd Morgan on Sunday night. Instead they alienate young people, and drive a wedge between the community and the police that makes it harder for us to come together and partner on real strategies to stop the violence.
Yet I also felt hope from witnessing Abdul Malik's boldness, demonstrating there are community members who are not afraid to hold the police accountable. I felt hope watching my wife talk to the girls as they played with the puppies, showing them there are adults in the community who care about them. And I felt hope thinking about tomorrow's Justice 4 Families meeting at CCFY, where the parents of youth impacted by the juvenile justice system come together to build community and discuss ways we can work together to keep our children out of jail.
In the wake of the Lloyd Morgan shooting, several Bronx politicians are now voicing their support for Stop & Frisk policing. But the numbers show that the police recover guns in 1 out of 3,000 stops, which is one third of one percent (0.03%). This strategy that is supposed to keep us safe more often results in incidents like this evening, that result in innocent young people feeling humiliated, insulted and criminalized. We need to stop the violence on our streets. But this will only happen when the NYPD stops treating entire communities as criminals, and decides to partner with real community leaders like Abdul Malik.
