Chief William Parker | Hip-Hop and Politics

Raymond Kelly Ups the Ante on Stop & Frisk, Black Officers Reject His Logic

August 19, 2013 By mrDaveyd

Raymond Kelly

Over the weekend NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly upped the ante with assertions that Stop and Frisk is needed now more than ever..He along with Mayor Bloomberg are appealing last week’s historic ruling which demanded the practice be modified and monitored.

Kelly also maintained his claim that Stop and Frisk was saving lives in Black and Brown communities. This is in spite of overwhelming evidence showing that people in those communities don’t want it.

Raymond Kelly also rejected the idea of police wearing cameras claiming that they would raise more questions than answer. He cited examples like domestic disputes and getting confidential information from informants as to whether or not officers should use cameras.

Kelly’s assertions were disputed by Noel Leader who is the co-founder of 100 Black Officers Who Care.. He appeared on the NY based TV Show Here and Now and talked about the outrage many are feeling around what he described as ‘illegal’ stop and frisk. He also rejected the notion that police wearing body cameras would be a hinderance as suggested by Kelly.

It was pointed out by former police Captain Reginald Lyles who is also African-American here in Oakland, California, that the logic being used Kelly and Bloomberg is similar to the logic used to lock up American citizens of Japanese descent during World War II.. He called it Apartheid logic..I definitely have to agree with perspective..

Check out the segment below featuring Leader and longtime activist Erica Ford..

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/video?id=9208430

Although Leader didn’t get into this aspect too much other members of his organization have spoken out about how they themselves as Black and Brown police officers are frequently stopped and harassed by fellow officers.. This was highlighted last year in the Village Voice in an article called Cops By Day, Targets by Night.

LAPD Chief William H Parker

It doesn’t take much to understand what Commissioner Kelly and Bloomberg are ultimately trying to do with this policy. It’s to make sure that people from targeted communities, no matter who they are frightened by the police. It’s a throwback to the bad ole days of policing in Los Angeles under Chief William Parker who militarized the police force and had a policy of making sure officers made contact with Black teens so they would know early on, who was in charge of the city. His policies were adopted by police departments all over the country. They were enhanced by his successor Chief Darryl Gates. Below is a brief documentary on Parker so folks can better understand some of this invasive policing action under the heading Stop and Frisk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2yFsx5vCLU

In closing we wanna give a shout out to another Hip Hop artists who has stepped up to use his talent to bring attention to Stop and Frisk…Most of us know about 10 Frisk Commandments from Jasiri X and Elon James.. Below is an incredible song and video from NY based artist Awkword who gives us an up close and personal view of what Stop and Frisk is like..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RtncRj4yUc&hd=1

We also have a joint from Bronx based Rebel Diaz called Stop Stop and Frisk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-duTrV9hSg

August 11 1965-Los Angeles Erupted:The Watts Riots-have Things Changed Much?

August 11, 2010 By mrDaveyd

Have things changed much since 1965? For many of us not really..Here’s a brief run down of the Watts Riots courtesy of Wikipedia.. One thing we should keep in mind is the tyrannical rule of LAPD Chief William Parker. His policy was to bring in southern cops to patrol the streets of LA specifically to contain Black residents and let them know the police were in charge. He also had a policy of having his officers engage every Black male they came across at a young age so they would have fear of the police instilled in them..

August 11, 1965, in Watts, a neighborhood in Los Angeles Lee Minikus, a California Highway Patrol motorcycle officer, pulled over Marquette Frye, who Minikus believed was intoxicated because of his observed erratic driving. Frye failed to pass sobriety tests, including walking in a straight line and touching his nose, and was arrested soon after. Minikus refused to let Frye’s brother, Ronald, drive the car home, and radioed for it to be impounded. As events escalated, a crowd of onlookers steadily grew from dozens to hundreds.^[1] The mob became violent, throwing rocks and other objects while shouting at the police officers. A struggle ensued shortly resulting in the arrest of Marquette and Ronald Frye, as well as their mother.

Burning buildings during the riots.

Though the riots began in August, there had previously been a buildup of racial tension in the area. The riots that began on August 11 resulted from an amalgamation of such events in Watts, and the arrest of three Frye family members broke the tension as violence spilled onto the streets of Watts for four days.

Watts suffered from various forms and degrees of damage from the residents’ looting and vandalism that seriously threatened the security of the city. Some participants chose to intensify the level of violence by starting physical fights with police, blocking the firemen of the Los Angeles Fire Department from their safety duties, or even beating white motorists. Others joined the riot by breaking into stores, stealing whatever they could, and some setting the stores themselves on fire.^[2]

LAPD Police Chief William Parker also fueled the radicalized tension that already threatened to combust, by publicly labeling the people he saw involved in the riots as “monkeys in the zoo”.^[2] Overall, an estimated $40 million in damage was caused as almost 1,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed. Most of the physical damage was confined to white-owned businesses that were said to have caused resentment in the neighborhood due to perceived unfairness. Homes were not attacked, although some caught fire due to proximity to other fires

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbElAfALWbM