Cops Hassled GOP Protesters
Matching my own impressions, a Newsday piece confirms that police harassed nonviolent protesters and uninvolved bystanders during this summer’s Republican convention in New York:
The Manhattan district attorney’s decision to throw out cases against 227 individuals who were arrested during a nonviolent anti-war march last month says volumes about what he thought of those arrests: They were bunk…. The DA said it was hard to tell if the defendants had deliberately defied the police orders and, given the brief duration of the march, “no useful purpose would be served” by prosecuting them….
All told, about 1,800 were arrested on the streets during the convention, handcuffed, fingerprinted, detained for as long as 48 hours, moved to a variety of holding places, deprived of food and water for long periods, only to be issued desk-appearance tickets, in most cases for disorderly conduct — which doesn’t even rise to the level of a crime…. Fingerprinting people in disorderly conduct cases isn’t even legal unless they lack credible identification or are the subjects of outstanding warrants. The police suspended the law in these arrests. (Sheryl McCarthy)
Although throwing out these cases ends the legal hassle, nothing prevents the cops from doing the same thing next time. Police “suspension of the law” is routine, in many cases approved of by public officials and the public at large. Many people are happy to see police decide when and how to enforce the law, or even to break the law when supposed technicalities stand in the way of public order and safety. A certain amount of discretion is unavoidable and even desirable, but the evidence is pretty clear that police across the country often abuse it.
In my own town of Brookline, Massachusetts, it’s police discretion in issuing parking tickets that attracts public debate. The topic is more mundane than arrests for political protest or harassment of people of color, but parking ticket abuse is something most people with cars can relate to. I’ve used my local newspaper columns on this subject to comment on the nature of law and discretion, topics I’ve considered in more detail in my academic writing on psychology, law, and justice.
