Message from the Borough President BROOKLYN-USA.ORG
Knowledge is power
A message from Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams
Brooklyn teens participated in the inaugural “Know Your Rights” training session, administered by Community Counseling & Mediation
(CCM), a Brooklyn-based non-profi t that provides services to at-risk youth. Borough President’s Offi ce/Erica Krodman
ONE BROOKLYN | WINTER 2019–2020 3
The video is blurry, out of focus. You
can hear a commotion, and vaguely
make out the fi gures of young people
and police offi cers on a train platform.
Then things get out of hand.
It’s unclear what triggers the brawl,
but suddenly, chaos ensues as some of
the teenagers in the video start to push
and shove, creating disorder on the
Jay Street/Metrotech platform. The
offi cers work to de-escalate the situation,
quarantining the area where the
fi ghting is taking place by forming a
protective circle — a textbook example
of proper police protocol. Except
for one. As some look on in horror, the
video shows a police offi cer run up to
one of the teenagers and punch him in
the face, in a completely unprovoked
assault. He goes on to punch two other
teenagers as the fi ghting dies down.
I policed the subway system as a
transit cop in the ’80s and ’90s, when
crime was rampant underground. At
its peak, we saw 17,500 transit crimes
in one year. We’ve made a lot of progress
in driving these numbers down
and making our subway system safer,
but the lessons of that era can’t be forgotten.
There is good and bad policing.
There are also good and bad ways for
young people to interact with police.
I also learned an important lesson
from the various young people with
whom I interacted when I served in
the transit police. In the video, you
can hear a voice off-screen during the
melee repeating, “I know my rights! I
know my rights!” But the reality, as I
learned from experience, is that all too
often, while young people may think
they know their rights, they really do
not. The consequences, as we saw during
the incident on that subway platform,
can often be dire. And yet there
have been few efforts to educate young
people on a systematic level about how
to interact with law enforcement.
That’s why my offi ce is introducing
a new peer-to-peer training program,
in partnership with the New York City
Department of Education (DOE) and
the local non-profi t Community Counseling
and Mediation, to help youth in
our city actually know their rights regarding
interactions with law enforcement.
The program will train homeless
students, many of whom interface
with police more than others, to lead
interactive workshops, just as we did
when I ran 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement
Who Care in the New York City
Police Department (NYPD), that teach
young people what to do in a variety of
scenarios when stopped by police —
whether it’s on a subway platform, in
a car, or anywhere else. It will roll out
in several Brooklyn schools fi rst, and
then go citywide next year.
It’s hard to overestimate what a sea
change this would represent. By having
their peers speak to them in a language
they can understand, students
would be empowered, instead of confused,
when interacting with law enforcement.
Not only will it improve
public safety for everyone, it will boost
civic literacy at a time when it is sorely
lacking in our education system.
None of this is to say that the onus
is exclusively on young people to avoid
violent confrontations with police.
The NYPD must also enhance and prioritize
its instruction on de-escalation
tactics during annual in-service
trainings for offi cers. In 2015, the New
York City Department of Investigation
found there was “little to no substantive
focus on de-escalation in NYPD’s
training programs.” It’s clear from
the Jay Street/Metrotech video: that
needs to change.
When we held our fi rst Know Your
Rights forum at Brooklyn Borough
Hall early last month, we saw young
people who are eager to engage and
to learn. During each of the exercises
and scenarios we conducted, they displayed
an enthusiasm and exuberance
that was inspiring. They understand,
as do many other young people, that
knowledge is power. And the more we
can arm them with the knowledge to
help them become not only better students,
but better citizens, the less likely
we are to see incidents like the unfortunate
one captured in that video.
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