Testimony before the Governmental Operations Committee of the City Council
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
City Hall
Alex S. Vitale Ph.D.
Department of Sociology
Brooklyn College
avitale@brookyn.cuny.edu
www.nyc-justice.org
The City of New York is facing a major challenge this summer in accommodating the needs of the Republican Party, hundreds
of thousands of demonstrators, and the residents of the city not involved with either group. The job of the city and its various
departments is to balance the rights of these groups within the framework of our legal system--including the bill of rights.
On February 15th of 2003 the NYPD failed in this basic obligation. They decided it was appropriate to use highly
dangerous levels of force—including charging horses into crowds and indiscriminate use of pepper spray—against
peaceful crowds, whose only alleged crime was standing in a street. In addition, they denied people the right to march and
created an elaborate system of barricades that made it impossible for hundreds of thousands of people to get to the demonstration
or to move about freely within the permitted rally area. The result was hundreds of unnecessary arrests and numerous preventable
injuries. In addition, those who were arrested were subjected to long periods in unheated vans without access to food, bathrooms,
medical care, or legal representation. Significant steps must be taken to prevent this from being repeated this summer during
the Republican National Convention.
To that end I am here today to speak in favor of the resolution before you. It provides an important framework for protecting
the rights of people to petition their government for the redress of wrongs—one of the most fundamental values of American
society. I would like to spend the next few minutes outlining why I think the NYPD has failed in its responsibility to protect
this right and how this resolution could be improved upon.
Over the last 10 years I have been reviewing the conduct of the NYPD at demonstrations in comparison to other major cities
in the United States and Europe. A clear pattern has emerged. The NYPD is invested in a system of total control of demonstrations.
This approach is an outgrowth of their commitment to the "broken windows" theory and its emphasis on eliminating disorder.
The NYPD’s actions at demonstrations indicate that it believes that any disorder at a protest event that is left uncontrolled
will result in a major breach of the peace. They have taken it upon themselves to micro-manage every aspect of a demonstration
in order to prevent this from happening. Ironically, It is exactly this attempt at micro-management and control that has led
to escalations in disorder in the past.
In 1998, the NYPD’s use of force to end the Million Youth March at exactly 4 PM, led to a violent confrontation,
resulting in injuries to police and demonstrators. Again in 1998, the department’s blanket refusal to allow a march
in response to the killing of Matthew Shepard resulted in an illegal march that police attempted to stop through the mobilization
of approximately 1,000 officers. Several people were injured by horses and batons and the city had to pay out over half a
million dollars in civil settlements to those injured and an unknown amount in police overtime. In the process, relations
between the police and the gay and lesbian community were badly damaged. In 2002, the city spent millions of dollars in overtime
to mobilize thousands of officers to tightly control a relatively small and peaceful demonstration against the World Economic
Forum. Similar amounts have been spent to control large labor events, including last week’s demonstration at City Hall.
No other city in the United States or Europe utilizes the excessive numbers of officers used routinely in New York. On February
15th, an estimated 4,000 officers were deployed. This is a larger number of officers than the entire police forces
of all but a few of the largest cities in the United States and Europe. Permitted events of large size in cities like Washington
D.C. and San Francisco are met with at most a few hundred police, not several thousand as in New York.
The NYPD believes that demonstrations should not be allowed to inconvenience non-demonstrators in any way, and that failures
to micro-manage the demonstrations will lead to chaos. This assessment is clearly incorrect. In addition, they do not seem
to be able to distinguish between peaceful permitted demonstrations and those that are designed with the intention of breaking
the law.
At a hearing before this committee last June, the NYPD said that it performed well compared to the San Francisco Police
Department, in its handling of anti-war demonstrations. In particular, they referred to the large direct actions that immobilized
central San Francisco for much of the day that the war began. Comparing that event to February 15th is to compare
apples and oranges. The events in San Francisco were unpermitted direct actions that were designed to break the law and cause
disruption.
Similarly, the Corporation Council’s office during the ongoing law suit brought by the NYCLU against the NYPD, argued
that the city had an interest in controlling the free movement of people within a demonstration to prevent injury as people
tried to jockey for position around the stage. The NYPD treats demonstrations as if they were rock concerts. There is no history
in New York or around the U.S. of people being injured in such a manner. No one has ever been crushed to death trying to get
closer to Ralph Nader. In fact, the heavy use of metal pens enhances the prospects of injury because if something were to
happen to cause the crowd to panic, people have no way of getting out.
The resolution before you rightly calls on the NYPD to grant permits without delay, restrain from using force against non-violent
crowds, and eliminate the use of pens and barricades to micro-manage the movement of demonstrators. There are some additional
measures that need to be taken as well. This body must take steps to insure that the police are publicly accountable for their
actions. One way to do that is to call them before you to explain their policies for the granting of permits, the utilization
of barricades, the use of force at demonstrations, and the treatment of arrestees while in custody. The council must ask the
police to explain under what circumstances they would use water cannons, rubber bullets, pepper spray, mounted units, and
other "less lethal" forms of violence against demonstrators.
Finally, the police must be pressured to provide for the humane treatment of detainees. Whether because of poor preparation
or intentional malice, the treatment of arrestees on February 15th was appalling. A repeat of that performance
would be a dark stain on the city’s reputation, especially given recent elevated concern with these issues domestically
and internationally. Images of detainees suffering medical crises because of confinement in unairconditioned vehicles, without
access to water, food or medical care, would be a public relations nightmare for the NYPD and the entire city. The City Council
must impress upon the NYPD the need to have adequate plans, facilities, and resources in place to process arrestees in a timely
and humane manner, which respects their basic constitutional and human rights.
I hope you will support this resolution as a first step in establishing a climate in New York City that tolerates dissent
rather than trying to control it.
Thank You.
