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What happens after you’re arrested at a protest in New York

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Re: What happens after you’re arrested at a protest in New York

#41
post #33

Perhaps it time someone built a web site where the opinions, comments, and especially actions/votes, of every politician running for office, from City Council on up, were tracked. Scoring the politicians based on their support for the constitution and especially human rights, plus encouraging the vote, could fix this after just an election cycle or two.

How about try to increase voter turnout first? No amount of public education and politician tracking will be useful if only 1/3 of eligible voters actually vote. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/11...

Low turnout is an acceptable response to an inefficient system where majoritarianism, gerrymandered districts, ballot access laws, etc. culminate in a meticulous engineering of the odds being stacked against the voters.

Though, for some reason, voting and "democracy" elicit such warm conditioned feelings that people are willing to desperately scrape for examples of whatever small local victories they've secured in order to justify that it's worth going through the whole jungle. Electoral reform, though? Dead end.

Re: What happens after you’re arrested at a protest in New York

#43
post #11

NYPD needs to be disbanded. If you have officers repeating the same conduct one just got charged with depraved heart murder for, it's out of control. This stuff is simple enough. Get out of your escort, stand among the other normal people and do some dogfooding of the police experience. I guess nobody higher up wants to spend the day doing that, because at the end of it there wouldn't be anyone still employed at NYPD…

When they expressed insubordination by turning their backs on the Mayor, that signalled to me that they have no respect for authority. This is exactly the kind of people that do not belong on a police force. I can't imagine why they weren't all fired. They certainly don't deserve any of the respect that they get, nor their pensions.

Every single one of those officers should have been fired on the spot. I'm no fan of de Blasio, but he's the democratically elected mayor of New York. Turning your back to him is turning your back to the people who elected him.

Re: What happens after you’re arrested at a protest in New York

#44
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When they expressed insubordination by turning their backs on the Mayor, that signalled to me that they have no respect for authority. This is exactly the kind of people that do not belong on a police force. I can't imagine why they weren't all fired. They certainly don't deserve any of the respect that they get, nor their pensions.

What? They are allowed to express their right to free speech and expression as well, just as the protestors should be able to.

[deleted]

Re: What happens after you’re arrested at a protest in New York

#45
> This was super distressing for a lot of people, as those belongings usually included wallet, phone, and keys. So after you are done at Central Booking, you are basically left with no possessions or money, and no way to get into your home or contact anyone.

Please, someone tell me this is fucking illegal.

Re: What happens after you’re arrested at a protest in New York

#46
"My arresting officer walked me out the door and down the street past the barricade, where there were volunteers from New York Lawyers Guild waiting to provide information on legal resources, as well as donuts and coffee."

That must've been a sight of relief. What a horrible experience everyone had to go through. This is nothing short of intimidation tactic.

Re: What happens after you’re arrested at a protest in New York

#47

I honestly didn't think you could be arrested for protesting like this without at least a warning and even then if only if it turned violent...

Yeah, it's pretty bizarre. Protesters are often arrested, held for 12 hours or so, then released without charges. Another thing I don't think the author mentioned is they often make you sign a form certifying your belongings are OK before giving you your belongings, so if you piss off a cop they can, for example, smash your smartphone and get away with it.

It's intimidation, imho. Classic scare tactics, scare off those who can be scared off - and no one cares about those who have nothing to lose (i.e. poor black people).

Fuck you, NYPD.

Re: What happens after you’re arrested at a protest in New York

#48
post #37
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they should be free to express their opinions. But free speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences. One could make a case that that sort of behavior could be considered insubordination and grounds for termination.

> Yes, they should be free to express their opinions. But free speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences. That's bad analysis. Free speech means freedom from government-imposed consequences, and since their employer is the government, being fired would be a government-imposed consequence. (For the same reason, public universities cannot discipline students for their protected speech.) Rather, the correct reason t…

Fair enough, my analysis wasn't sufficiently specific. I agree that gov't employees should be free from government-imposed consequences if they are critizing policy. In contrast directly disregarding one's boss, while working in an official capacity, should not necessarily be free from government-imposed consequences (i.e., that should be a sanctionable offense). Obviously there's a divding line betwen the two, so it depends where that line is drawn (and where one places the actions of those officers on that spectrum).

Re: What happens after you’re arrested at a protest in New York

#49
post #39

I honestly didn't think you could be arrested for protesting like this without at least a warning and even then if only if it turned violent...

From what I've read, there had been plenty of warnings all day. >The group was on East 17th Street about halfway down the block when police took a stand and ordered protesters to get on the sidewalk. Before the march, while the group was in Union Square, police handed out flyers and used loudspeakers to warn protesters that they would be arrested if they didn't stay on the sidewalk. http://7online.com/news/more-than-…

> From what I've read, there had been plenty of warnings all day.

That doesn't mean that e.g. someone who had just joined the protest was aware of that warning.

Re: What happens after you’re arrested at a protest in New York

#50
post #11

NYPD needs to be disbanded. If you have officers repeating the same conduct one just got charged with depraved heart murder for, it's out of control. This stuff is simple enough. Get out of your escort, stand among the other normal people and do some dogfooding of the police experience. I guess nobody higher up wants to spend the day doing that, because at the end of it there wouldn't be anyone still employed at NYPD…

When they expressed insubordination by turning their backs on the Mayor, that signalled to me that they have no respect for authority. This is exactly the kind of people that do not belong on a police force. I can't imagine why they weren't all fired. They certainly don't deserve any of the respect that they get, nor their pensions.

Calling it insubordination is too generous. Turning their backs on their mayor in such setting is downright juvenile. It shows level of deep rooted rotten mob mentality that permeates the force.
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