Police Brutality Caught on Camera
WARNING: DISTURBING VIDEO
New York Law Enforcement is a Disaster
A woman who happened to be walking in the Canarsie neighborhood in Brooklyn, was able to record the violent arrest of a young black man. Fitzroy Gayle was in the park yesterday when he was followed by a New York Police officer. There are different versions of what happened. According to the police officer he saw Mr. Gayle smoking marijuana and stated that Mr. Gayle ran from him. According to Gayle as quoted in BuzzFeedNews.com, “I came out of the park, I calmly walked across the street,” he said. “[The officer] was jogging towards me while I was walking and I’m not stupid enough to run from the cops because it gives them a green light to shoot at me.” The video starts after the officer is already detaining Mr. Gayle.
Legal Requirements
By law, New York Officers are supposed to tell a person why they are being detained/arrested. In the video you can hear Mr. Gayle ask multiple times, why he is being stopped. The officer never seems to answer him. The NYPD has a long history of police abuse. They also have one of the most anti-public union we have ever read about. The officers have convinced themselves, and their union validates it, that everyone is scum and deserves to be treated like scum. They are dismissive of the laws, as those laws relate to them, but don’t see the hypocrisy in that.
Police Violence
While the unknown NYPD officer is detaining Mr. Gayle, he calls for back up. Other officers arrive with about seven additional officers swarming Mr. Gayle in a stunning display of excessive use of force by police. During the whole incident, Mr. Gayle never became violent or aggressive in any way. He kept trying to find out what was happening. He kept his hands up for most of the time. None of that did any good. Upon arrival, the officers aggressively attacked Mr. Gayle with excessive force, and took him to the ground, swarming on him like a pack of rabid dogs. Mr. Gayle can be heard screaming for help.
Fitzroy Gayle was arrested for Possession of Marijuana, but Mr. Gayle says he did not have any marijuana on him. And naturally he was charged with the old familiar standby that officers always use, Resisting Arrest. If you make any move to try to protect yourself from being assaulted officers charge you with resisting arrest. Heck, it doesn’t even have to be physical. That charge seems to be used anytime they get annoyed. And lastly, Gayle was charged with Obstructing Governmental Administration. I don’t know about you but that sounds like another resisting arrest bullshit kind of charge.
Decriminalization of Marijuana
Just so you know, in 2019, New York City changed the marijuana laws. They partially decriminalized it, making the possession of more than 2 ounces a ticket. However, the police along with their union were adamantly against that change. There was no reason to have used the amount of aggression that was caught on video. Even if Mr. Gayle had run, he was no longer running and was pretty much compliant with everything. If force is used it’s supposed to be appropriate to what’s needed at the moment, not based on what may have happened sometime earlier. To say it’s okay to brutally attack a man who is not resisting because earlier he ran is nothing less than abuse of power by police.
WARNING: DISTURBING VIDEO
I’m walking home from work and this undercover cop was holding this man. The guy asked for the cop to identify himself, he ignore that. He asked what crime he commit, he ignore that too. I pulled out my phone. You can hear the guy screaming “I never thought it would happen to me” pic.twitter.com/YW2dI3g8fk
— Velvet (@TheVelvetRope__) March 5, 2020