17-year-old Enrique Del Rosario was recently exonerated of all pending charges after a video tape was released contradicting the NYPD’s version of events.
On June 8, 2014 Brooklyn hosted it’s annual Puerto Rican Day parade. Every year citizens report that the NYPD descend on the crowds of young people; they are often seen pushing and harassing them. The neighborhood police watchdog group El Grito De Sunset Park monitors the parade every year, founder Dennis Flores told Think Progress,
?We’ve been documenting this every year. The neighborhood gets flooded with police officers. Young kids are marching, waving flags, and cops are corralling them, pushing them around, like it’s a nuisance to have them out celebrating their culture.?
This year,?Del Rosario and other on-lookers decided to video tape the NYPD’s behavior. According to Del Rosario’s Attorney Rebecca Heinegg; When?Del Rosario was seen videotaping the NYPD shoving a woman standing next to him, they turned their attention towards him. They slammed him against the gate of a closed store and started beating him with batons. As the beating started, the police started pushing and spraying mace at the on-lookers to prevent them from being able to witness and record their actions.
Del Rosario?was charged with assault on a police officer. The officer was injured when another officer swung to hit?Del Rosario and missed, hitting the other officer in the head instead.?Del Rosario narrowly avoided those charges after the grand jury decided not to indict him last September.
Del Rosario?still faced charges for resisting arrest and grand larceny. That is until the attorney general’s office generously offered to drop all charges if the teen kept his nose clean for the following?six months. Many believe that this ?grand gesture? was not made solely in the upcoming holiday spirit, but rather out of nervous calculation. Despite the fact that the police had videographers at the scene of the parade, a lot of footage seemed to wind up ?missing?. Flores said this to Think Progress,
?If we don’t have access to the cams the NYPD already uses, that’s how it’s going to be with the body cams, How will these body cams ever work if this is how they deal with evidence??
Just imagine what would happen if poor minority communities started organizing and recording each and every police interaction? I personally think this is the kind of responsibility each American needs to adopt in order to ensure we do not become a true police state.
Here is video from the parade.
