The City of Rochester failed Daniel Prude and allowed predator cops to fail harder

Bank robbers and mental health patients receive the same police solutions: violence. Daniel Prude’s 157-days old death at the hands of Rochester police officers, and the subsequent overdue and — for the moment — relatively lenient suspensions given to the cops involved, make me think about another way cities continue to set up Black folks […]

Buffalo Police Department’s 57-member tactical team resigned after the city suspended two officers for shoving 75-year old Martin Gugino to the ground, making him bleed. Good.

Eff them. They didn’t completely leave the force, but they should. I’ll riff off an old Funkadelic song: America eats its old. Peak oppression displays one of its most dangerous inhumane tendencies to the world when institutions begin to publicly abuse children and elders who appear to question authority. The violently-repressive nationwide response by police […]

Amazon’s pullout and New Yorker’s confusion about economic growth

My response — after laughing — when I heard Amazon is pulling out of that sweet deal to set up a second headquarters in New York City was short, but loaded with meaning. “Jeff Bezos must’ve thought he was playing with Independence, Iowa.” Or some other small town. But even those places are pushing back […]

BLIZZARD BREAD-CHASERS

This is a summary of conversations I had today with a bunch of people about my response to NYC’s Snowmageddon: They: Did you go shopping for the blizzard? Me: Nah. They: Why not? It’s supposed to be a serious storm. Me: I buy food every week, and have a pantry that’s probably good for two months. Why […]

ALWAYS LOOKING FOR THE BLACK ONES WITH THE BRICKS

The Broken Windows paradigm of law enforcement – or more specifically, the policing strategy of stopping or arresting perpetrators of minor, quality-of-life crimes to prevent more serious offenses from occurring – received a big endorsement from most New Yorkers inclusive of the Black community, thanks to a recent Quinnipiac survey of attitudes about the […]

STOP AND FRISK COMES TO BARNEYS

I’m not surprised to hear about the New York City Police Department extending its stop-n-frisk behavior to upscale joints like Barneys when they falsely arrested 19-year old African American Trayon Christian, after he legally bought a $350 Ferragamo belt from the retailer. But since we now know the NYPD “periodically” visits Barneys to nab credit […]

WHO DIGS POOR FOLKS ANYWAY?

This quote by Democratic strategist Howard Wolfson during an interview with The Atlantic confirms for me why electing a Liberal like Bill De Blasio to be Mayor of New York City will not mean the magical disappearance of income inequality, and also serves as a reminder of why I don’t have a party […]

IF WEINER ACTS LIKE A WEINERHEAD AGAIN…

I think a good summary of what many New Yorkers think about disgraced former Congressman and current – in spite of a new sex chat scandal – NYC Mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner would be a conversation I had with my Mother on the topic. When news of Weiner’s behavior first broke in 2011, Mom had […]