THE VOICES OF STOP AND FRISK
Justin Serrano, 20, Bushwick, stopped 90+ times
Chris Bilal, 25, Washington Heights, stopped 6 times
Keeshan Harley, 19, Bedford-Stuyvesant, stopped 150+ times
By Aleks Mencel, Ben Baskin, Lisa Malykhina
As New York City residents become more and more vocal about the issue of stop and frisk, young people are finding a 21st century way to have their own voices heard.
In a crowded SoHo basement on Sullivan Street in Manhattan, hundreds of people gathered Tuesday night for the multimedia pop-up exhibit, “More Than a Quota: Our Experience, Our Story,” organized by Make the Road NY, LatinoJustice, and Urban Arts Partnership. An hour into the event, the small venue was packed with a diverse crowd (primarily young blacks and Latinos), and as the night went on some attendees even spilled out into the street.
All around the space were flat screen TVs that played videos of young people sharing their stories of being stopped.
Upon arrival, guests received a “Know Your Rights” packet as well as a colored wristband and a stop and frisk story to correspond with the wristband. Several event participants were dressed as police officers and would select attendees to “stop and frisk” based on quotas from actual police reports. Many of the night’s organizers had been stopped and frisked themselves, often multiple times.
“I’ve been stopped over 90 times between the ages of 13 and 16,” said Justin Serrano, 20, of Bushwick.
Serrano is interning at Make the Road New York and working on his GED with the hopes of getting into college. His younger brother, who worked the event as well, was recently stopped and frisked for the first time. He just turned 13.
“When my little brother first told me he got stopped I actually cried. My younger brother is a good kid, all he wants to do is school and play basketball. He was crying to me like ‘the cops stopped me and I didn’t do anything. I was playing with a basketball.’ Cops stopped him for dribbling a ball, its not right,” said Serrano.
Chris Bilal, 25, of Washington Heights, said he often feels like the sacrifices he makes to live in New York City as a young black male are not worth it.
“I feel like a slave. Kind of like a freed slave after slavery ended who was idling and then taken back to their master,” said Bilal, a campaign staffer at Streetwise & Safe, a program that empowers LGBTQQ youth of color in regards to police encounters.
Jose Lopez, 27, the lead organizer of “More Than a Quota” and a member of Make the Road since 1999, videotaped the event, taking breaks to chat with attendees and fellow volunteers. Lopez and other event organizers wanted to raise awareness about stop and frisk through accessible and interactive art. Throughout the night, visitors were encouraged to participate in surveys, share their stories, and contribute to poster boards by writing their thoughts about the police on sticky notes. There was a lot to do to keep visitors engaged and informed.
“This event has been a conversation piece for so long,” said Lopez. “We have to do some kind of exhibit, we have to talk about Bloomberg’s legacy on policing and Commissioner Ray Kelly’s legacy on policing, and it took a while to piece it together and it really felt like the right timing.”
One of the most recognized faces at the event was Keeshan Harley, 19, who has been stopped over 150 times, most often near his home in Bedford-Stuyvesant. The Nation recently posted a video chronicling his experience.
“Everyday I get stopped and frisked, everyday you yell at me, you call me some derogatory term, everyday I see people who look like me—young youth just going to school, going to the park, going to store, going to pick up their brother and sister, going to help their mom in the hospital—they get stopped and frisked, so they’re criminals too, everyone who looks like me is a criminal, everyone who sounds like me, listens to the music I listen to, eat the food I eat, go to the places I go to, we’re all criminals,” said Harley.
At the end of the evening, the political hip hop group from the Bronx, Rebel Diaz, performed. Known to use their music as a way to spread knowledge about injustice, the group has been critical of the NYPD’s stop and frisk practices.
The “More Than a Quota” exhibit ran until Thursday, December 5.
Music: Nostrand by Ratatat
