Police Arrests Violence Counselors While at Work(SOS Officers)
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Before I go into this arrest of two SOS workers. Let me explain The SOS workers are paid and are called to situations in which hopefully violence can be averted. The squad of these hard-working guys was formed by Mayor Adams which by the way matches other cities in which police have shot too many people in the art of arresting them. Many of them resisted arrest because they thought the cops were wrong and they had done nothing wrong. They made the mistake of not going quietly into jail and it cost them their lives. This is the best mayor Adams and other Maayors across The US could come up with to take control of people that it seems cannot be controlled with the power given to them. Not to defend anyone who resists arrest. It is wrong but if you look at the issue from the other side you have people that don't trust the police. Why? You know why. Just look at Central Park 5 in which "The Donald" is now soon to be tried for sex with a GoGo girl and paying her off with money that belongs to the taxpayers so it did not spill before the election of 2016. He ran a newspaper page to ask for the death penalty for those guys before they were found guilty. After many years in prison, DNA and other factors exonerated those young black and Hispanic guys. One might say, anyone can make a mistake....But I will say not a mistake like this big with so many officers and detectives involved. It takes the same racism Donald showed with that newspaper page.
The problem with the cops is that when they think someone is guilty they go after them not to find the facts but to find any evidence to get those so-called perps locked up. In many cases, they are black and Hispanic. Evidence can be manipulated. Even a polygraph can be manipulated, the main reason those tests are not accepted in any court of law in the US.
Am I defending blacks and Hispanics? No way? But I have been the victim of crime many times.
Once as a hate crime victim I ended up with handcuffs on me. They let me go but after I said what the cops where telling me to say. You will not find a police report on this or any truthful notes on this incident. I could have let them arrest me and found me not guilty later or even as I got to the Police precinct. Imagine arresting the victim of a Hate crime. Talk about cops' hate! but that is not an easy ordeal to go through, particularly if you are not familiar with cops and the way they behave. This is not to impune the character and hard work of so many good cops. I see Younger detectives that have smarts besides a badge and gun. Give me 5 minutes with any cop discussing any subject and I will know whether this is an educated (College)cop or not. Well now to the story of the arrest of these mediators which bothers me tremendously.
Maria Cramer and
The New York Times
The New York Police Department continued on Friday to defend its arrests of two conflict mediators in Brooklyn in February, releasing body-camera and surveillance videos of the episode that police officials said showed one of the workers striking an officer.
The arrests of the mediators, one of whom was injured while being swarmed by officers, exposed tensions between the police and those known as violence interrupters, who work for city-funded organizations and try to defuse street-level conflicts before they escalate, including into gun violence.
The mediators, Mark Johnson and Dequann Stanley, who are longtime employees of the violence-interrupter group Save Our Streets in Crown Heights, were arrested in the episode and issued summonses for disorderly conduct. The charges were later dismissed.
The men filed court papers indicating that they intended to sue the city as a result of the arrests, which they said occurred as they tried to calm a man who was being taken into police custody.
But at a briefing this week and in a social media post on Friday, police officials said the men had disrupted officers as they arrested the man, who was ultimately charged with fentanyl possession.
The arrests and the ensuing fallout pose a challenge to Mayor Eric Adams, whose public safety strategy leans heavily on expanding the use of interrupters, a community-based supplement to traditional policing that has taken root in other major U.S. cities. Last year, Mr. Adams announced $86 million in funding for the interrupter system in the 2024 fiscal year.
The police and the interrupter groups both seek to combat gun violence while using starkly different approaches, and policing experts say the disparate roles can come into conflict in the chaos of an arrest.
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Tarik Sheppard, the Police Department’s commissioner of public information, said the video released in several installments this week — a combination of body-camera footage and footage from police security cameras — showed how tensions often flare at crime scenes when interrupters get in the way of officers making arrests.
“Once the cops are saying, ‘I have probable cause to arrest somebody,’ that has nothing to do with a violence interrupter,” he said at a news briefing this week.
“None of them are supposed to be approaching arresting officers, and being like, “I need to know what happened here,’” Commissioner Sheppard said, adding that if an officer “is putting handcuffs on somebody, there is no interaction between violence interrupters and that situation. That is not their job, ever.”
“In a statement, M.K. Kaishian, a lawyer for Mr. Johnson and Mr. Stanley, said both men had “told the truth” about the circumstances surrounding the arrests.
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| Dequann Stanley standing on a sidewalk in front of a brick building with three balloons tied to a low black metal fence. |
Dequann Stanley was hospitalized with bruised ribs and a gash on his head after the arrest. Credit...Kirsten Luce for The New York Times
“No S.O.S. workers interfered in the arrest in any way, nor were they alleged to,” she said, adding that she believed the police were objecting to officers’ behavior being questioned.
Courtney Bryan, the executive director of Center for Justice Innovation, which runs Save our Streets, said the organization stood behind Mr. Stanley and Mr. Johnson.
“We have met with and will continue to meet with city officials, N.Y.P.D., and community leaders to ensure our staff and all violence interrupters are treated as the indispensable, skilled partners they are,” she said in a statement.
The police initially declined to release video footage of the episode or to comment on the arrests or on the department’s broader interactions with interrupters for a New York Times article published last Saturday.
The 15-minute long video sequence released by the police on Friday begins with the arrest of the man they accused of buying drugs.
The footage shows a chaotic scene, with officers first detaining the man, whose name was not released, and then surrounding him on the ground as he refuses their efforts to handcuff him. One officer fires a Taser at the man, the video shows.
Several violence interrupters can be seen following the officers, with Mr. Johnson telling them to “calm down” with the man. “You all don’t need to act stupid with him,” Mr. Johnson says. “He’s in handcuffs.”
Other videos released by Ms. Kaishian show Mr. Johnson also told the man to calm down.
Mr. Johnson, Mr. Stanley, and others with Save Our Streets follow the officers, who are in the street, as they lead the man to a patrol car while appearing to stay several feet away.
Another clip released by the police shows Mr. Johnson walking on the sidewalk toward the police car and coming into contact with a lieutenant who extends his arms to the side, blocking Mr. Johnson’s path. Mr. Johnson briefly stumbles backward and then appears to swat the lieutenant’s arm away.
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Mark Johnson wearing a New York Yankees hat and an S.O.S. staff jacket. In the videos, several violence interrupters follow the police, with Mark Johnson telling the officers to “calm down” with the man. “You don’t need to act stupid with him,” he said. “He’s in handcuffs.”Credit...Kirsten Luce for The New York Times |
At that point, the police footage shows, the lieutenant and several other officers swarm Mr. Johnson and bring him to the ground.
The police footage shows Mr. Stanley rushing forward, being swung around and brought to the ground by an officer, and then surrounded by several more officers. In an interview, Mr. Stanley said he could feel himself being kicked and punched. The police did not release footage from the cameras worn by the officers who arrested Mr. Stanley.
Mr. Stanley was hospitalized with bruised ribs and a gash on his head after the arrest.
The video released on Friday concludes with the aftermath of Mr. Johnson’s arrest when, while handcuffed and being brought to a patrol car, he tells officers that he has a knife in his pocket.
One officer asks whether it will stick him, and Mr. Johnson replies no. When the officer thanks him, Mr. Johnson replies: “Of course, come on, I ain’t going to do that to you all.”
The police, who described the weapon as a gravity knife, did not charge Mr. Johnson with possession of a weapon. Gravity knives, which can be unfolded using the blade’s weight to swing open, are legal to carry in New York, but the police said they could have charged Mr. Johnson with a misdemeanor because the knife’s blade was longer than 4 inches.
Mr. Johnson, in the video, can be heard defending his actions and saying he was doing his job.
“You cannot stop me from walking the path of anything,” he tells the officers. “Come on, I work for S.O.S.”
Hurubie Meko contributed reporting.
Maria Cramer is a Times reporter covering the New York Police Department and crime in the city and surrounding areas. More about Maria Cramer
Chelsia Rose Marcius covers breaking news and criminal justice for the Metro desk, with a focus on the New York City Police Department. More about Chelsia Rose Marcius
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