Following The Indictment Of 48 People In West Harlem, Community Members Criticize The NYPD's Gang Policing Tactics And Call For Change

Upper West Side NY

05 October, 2021

3:45 PM

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Columbia Daily Spectator BY LUCY BRENNER OCTOBER 5, 2021 As demonstrations against police brutality continue to take place following the momentum built in the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 and a former police officer is set to win the New York City mayoral race, the New York Police Department's controversial gang takedowns have come to the forefront of a citywide dialogue on policing. In Harlem, a rise in aggressive gang policing—one that saw several major indictments this September—has revived discussions about its harmful nature in local communities. Authorities have been investigating a gang known as "Main Event" as early as 2018, and many residents have maintained communication with the NYPD to ease community fears of violence. On Sept. 9, 48 people were ultimately indicted on charges ranging from conspiracy to attempted murder. But as local support grows for anti-violence and restorative justice initiatives, police tactics such as gang takedowns have become increasingly controversial, and many community members have called for alternative methods of violence reduction. West Harlem resident Alan Cohen, along with members of his apartment building, cooperated with police in the area and held meetings with both City College police and the NYPD. Cohen was initially dissatisfied with the NYPD's lack of action in dealing with the violence in his neighborhood. "It was very frustrating for a long time because what the police told us was, 'We're working on a major operation. We're not interested in busting these kids who are too young to do any time and will be immediately released.' … It was sort of like, 'We know it's happening, and we're not going to intervene at all,' which was very unsatisfactory," Cohen said. This recent indictment is part of a broader picture of gang takedowns and aggressive policing practices in West Harlem over the past decade. In 2014, police raided the Manhattanville and Grant Houses in West Harlem, indicting 103 people for a range of crimes in the largest gang raid conducted by the NYPD. Derrick Haynes, who works with Taylonn Murphy to run the Tayshana "Chicken" Murphy Foundation—a West Harlem-based conflict intervention organization—recalls meeting with the district attorney's office after the Grant Houses raid and expressing his dismay about the chaos it bred. "We tried to explain to [the district attorney's office] as well as the NYPD that if you guys had just come to us and asked us to bring those guys to the table, we could've brought them to the table and maybe saved everybody from this raid, because the raid damaged the whole community, whether you were a part of the 103 that got arrested, whether you were a family member, whether you were a friend," Haynes said. Community members and local advocates criticize the recurring hostile policing tactics for traumatizing the local community. "We have been exercising a war by militarizing our police against people of color in the same communities. We haven't figured it out. We just keep repeating the same vicious cycle, and we keep hurting people of color," Sean Farrow, a trial attorney at the Legal Aid Society, said. Though gang takedowns have become prominent local policing methods, residents express discontent with the actual results they produce. Even residents who support police intervention, like Cohen, often do not believe that long-term issues can be resolved by NYPD busts. "The block has been quieter [since the bust], but I don't believe, and I don't know anyone else who believes, that's the end of the problem," Cohen said. Critics argue that these police raids do not address the root causes of violence, and rather than resolve issues, they often bring further damage to the community. "The gang takedowns serve no purpose anymore, and I don't think they ever did. They hurt and traumatize our communities, especially our communities of color. It doesn't stop gun violence, it doesn't stop the drug war, it doesn't do any of those things," Farrow said. Farrow views the takedowns as nothing more than a misleading attempt to grab headlines. "Yes, the headlines say that 48 people connected to gangs and drugs and murders were arrested. But what people don't realize, once the cameras are away and the reporters are gone, is that you have, in the wake of this devastation, families ripped apart, people struggling with mental health and emotional health issues, people that will be in prison on Rikers for things that they really have no connection to," Farrow said. These policing tactics have also been criticized because of the intrusive surveillance methods that police use leading up to the raids themselves. A major point of contention is the NYPD's gang database, a collection of records on anywhere between 17,500 and 42,000 New Yorkers, the majority of whom are people of color. To obtain data for these records, police take pictures of people out on the street and offer them cigarettes or drinks to get their fingerprints to upload to the database. Thousands of the people documented in the database have only tenuous ties to gangs. "These cops will stop pretty much at nothing to get any information on people, upload it to the gang database, and label this person as a gang member," Farrow said. Some argue that instead of aggressive takedowns and policing, local violence should be addressed through community-based healing programs and social services. Haynes stresses the importance of having basic services available to the young people in the community, such as afterschool and evening programs, that keep them otherwise occupied. Murphy and Haynes have worked to establish communication between young people that live in the Manhattanville Houses and the Grant Houses, who at times come into violent conflict with each other. Murphy and Haynes were able to bring together teenagers from both residences, along with the commanding officer of the 26th precinct, for a discussion. "There were no fights, no cursing. In the beginning, the air was thick, but the young men handled themselves well. They sat down, they talked, they said, 'We need jobs.' They said, 'We need programs,'" Haynes said. Murphy believes that gang policing must be balanced with the work of grassroots organizations in order to enhance public safety in marginalized communities. "I believe there has to be a medium between system-driven agencies and [community-based organizations]. We have to connect the dots, because a lot of the time we're all working in silos, meaning that we're all working separately for the same goal, but if we could work collectively it would be more effective," Murphy said. Staff writer Lucy Brenner can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow Spectator on Twitter @ColumbiaSpec. Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.