NYPD to black teens over loudspeaker: ‘Get out of the neighborhood’
theGRIO REPORT - A Brooklyn resident recently witnessed NYPD officers trailing a group of black teens in their cruisers before announcing over a loudspeaker for them “to get out of the neighborhood.”
A Brooklyn, New York, resident recently witnessed NYPD officers trailing a group of black teens in their cruisers before announcing over a loudspeaker for them “to get out of the neighborhood.”
The Park Slope witness, identified as Sara Bennett, reported that the two patrol cars followed the five or six teens with their top lights on, but sirens off. Bennett said that the teens appeared to be around 16 years old and that the event occurred around 2:45 PM, according to New York Magazine.
“I was really upset and disturbed,” Bennett said at a 78th Council Meeting on September 30 regarding the September 22 incident, “not by the kids, but by the way the police were yelling at them to get out of the neighborhood.”
Commanding Officer Capt. Frank DiGiacomo said that he was unaware of the incident in question but suggested that officers were wary of larger groups of teens due to rising incidents at the Atlantic Center Mall. The area where the police told the group “to get out of the neighborhood” is located about a mile and a half away from the mall.
Despite a Salon article suggesting that the teens in question were breaking no laws by simply walking along the sidewalk in a group, DiGiacomo defended the officer’s actions, saying that “if [teens] are not playing basketball, you’re not playing soccer, you’re not doing something productive in the neighborhood, I can see [officers] moving them.”
“We’ve had large fights,” DiGiacomo also said according to DNAinfo. “…when one or two are hanging out, it’s never a problem, but when we have larger groups of kids together and we don’t ask them to move or go somewhere else, they become a larger group, and that’s when we get assaults.”
But Bennett disagrees and called City Councilman Brad Lander’s office, who confirmed that they are investigating the afternoon’s events. Of the teens, Bennett said, “They were just walking down the street.”
