Bronx News Roundup, Jan. 22

Police have released footage of a Bronx shooting suspect caught on tape, asking the public to help in identifying the perp. The man in the video is suspected of taking part in a shooting that occurred in December in which the victim was left in stable condition at St. Barnabas Hospital.

In an attempt to remove illegal firearms from the streets of the Bronx, police and clergy members are co-sponsoring a gun buy back this Saturday, January 23, at select Bronx churches. Illegal or legal firearms may be exchanged for a $200 bank card at participating locations.

The eighth Homeless Outreach Population Estimate (HOPE) will take place next week. Volunteers will scour the Bronx to count the borough's homeless population. The program seeks to tally the total number of homeless living in the Bronx as a means of collecting basic dempographic data and offering individuals shelter opportunities.

After a video released yesterday showed a Bronx man being punched repeatedly by police officers while handcuffed on the ground, a second man has come forward claiming that he was also a victim of police brutality during the same drug raid that left two police wounded after an officer's gun was discharged in a narrow hallway.

An article over at the Gotham Gazette discusses the history of the Kingsbridge Armory development project that led to the City Council's rejection of the project last month, and the Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance's (KARA) role in the ordeal.

And last but not least, an article from the UK discusses Oscar buzz over former Lehman College student Gabourey Sidibe for her breakthrough role in the film Precious.

Bronx News Roundup, Oct. 22

More on the charitable life and senseless death of Sadie Mitchell, the 92-year-old Williamsbridge woman who killed by a stray bullet on Tuesday evening. This morning, police took a man in for questioning.

The Gotham Gazette takes a long look at Mayor Bloomberg's contribution to city parks these past eight years. In the Bronx, it's a record that's decidedly mixed. On one hand you have record spending, on the other, the ongoing construction of a water filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park, and the new Yankee Stadium, projects which gobbled up significant amounts of green space.

Yankees fans' hopes to preserve Gate 2 of the old Yankee Stadium (when the stadium is finally torn down) have hit a snag. The city says doing so would increase costs, and further delay the replacement parks promised to the community.

The Riverdale Press profiles Edward Tom, the successful principal of The Bronx Center for Science and Mathematics, a high school on Fulton Avenue just south of Crotona Park. Tom was featured on CBS back in July.

Last Sunday, a Melrose blogger witnessed - and photographed - what he says was an incident of police brutality on Third Avenue near East 158th Street.

Bronx News Roundup: Oct. 30

Battle for the Bronx Democratic Party
The Times' City Room writes about the legal wrangling going on at the Bronx County Courthouse between two faction vying for the leadership of the Bronx Democratic Party. Basically, it says the flareup is an embarassment to the party.

Here's a good summation: "At a time when party organizations throughout the area are busy dispatching volunteers to Pennsylvania to work for Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, Bronx leaders have been criticized for a level of infighting so intense that they are spending their days in court."

Embattled current leader Jose Rivera's camp made it's case yesterday and the insurgents, led by Carl Heastie and Jeff Dinowitz, are supposed to outline their arguments today. Closing arguments are set for tomorrow, but a decision might not be made for another couple of weeks.

Other News
A teacher who called his Bronx students "filthy animals" will not be allowed to retain his job. After being fired over the comments last year, he sued the school district. But a judge upheld the firing.

A Bronx man was shot in the leg last night in Mt. Vernon.

The Kalamazoo Gazette profiles Bronx musician Lipbone Redding who started as a subway musician and is now gaining national notoriety. Redding uses his voice to create sounds like a trombone and calls himself a "voicestumentalist."

Two Bronx cops were indicted on assault charges after allegedy spraying a man with tear gas, then pistol-whipping him and beating him with a baton. Apparently, the man was blocking traffic with his door and had yelled something at the officers.

Yankees President Randy Levine said they would have moved the team to New Jersey or somewhere out of the Bronx, if the city didn't issue tax-exempt bonds for the new stadium project. Congress recently conducted hearings into whether the team and the city's Economic Development Corporation inflated the value of the land in order to get the tax-exempt bonds approved.

In the saddest story of the day, a Throgs Neck man allegedly stabbed his wife's beagle to death after the couple had an argument. Warning: if you're a dog lover, this may make you cry. The NY Post's headline reads, "Snoopy Didn't Have to Die."

A Highbridge area soup kitchen may be evicted, but not without protests from local residents.

NY1 takes the Bronx's political temperature and reports that the borough has Obama fever.

Rally in Harlem against police brutality

A crowd of about 40 people gathered in Harlem Wednesday as part of an annual nationwide protest against police brutality.

Speakers at the demonstration, organized by the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, denounced what they described as an “epidemic” of shootings, harassment, and brutality committed by law enforcement across the U.S. The rally brought together a diverse group. Among those who participated were: Parents of people killed by the police; teenagers with the Ya Ya Network—a citywide youth organization that fights racism, sexism, and homophobia, works to oppose military recruitment, and advocates for women’s reproductive rights, among other issues; members of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP); activists with Make the Road by Walking, a Brooklyn-based group that advocates for civil rights, health care, and housing for low-income New Yorkers; a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW); and activists with The World Can’t Wait Drive Out the Bush Regime, a nationwide grassroots movement that opposes the policies of the Bush administration and demands the administration’s political ouster from office.

Margarita Rosario, who works in Highbridge, was one of the first speakers at the rally. In January 1995, Rosario’s son, Anthony, and her nephew, Hilton Vega, were shot and killed by NYPD Officers in the Bronx. No charges were filed against the officers. The killings became the subject of the 2001 Documentary, “Justifiable Homicide.”

According to the synopsis of the film on the Web site of Human Rights Watch, “Forensic evidence and testimony from witnesses reveals that Anthony Rosario and his cousin Hilton Vega were shot repeatedly while lying facedown.”

Rosario has spoken every year at October 22 rallies for the past decade or so, and on Wednesday she broke down crying as she recounted the fatal shootings of her son and nephew.

“When are we gonna get together and stop this epidemic? When?” Rosario asked. As she spoke, several people at a bus stop across West 125th Street responded approvingly, nodding or raising a fist.

Taking note of their reactions, Rosario addressed the bystanders directly. “You say ‘yes,’ but you’re not on this side of the street,” Rosario told them.

At least one person responded to her challenge.

“All this stuff gotta stop man,” Harlem resident Richard Kirkpatrick said, explaining his decision to cross West 125th Street and join in the protest.

Kirkpatrick said he had led one of the first marches in Harlem following the April acquittal of the three officers charged in the killing of Sean Bell. Asked why he felt more people had not joined in the protest spontaneously, as he had, Kirkpatrick replied, “When it happens to their son or daughter, that’s when they’re going to join us.”

Although statistics and high-profile incidents of police brutality suggest victims are often persons of color—while the officers involved are often white—Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) member Carl Dix said police brutality was caused by capitalism, and not simply racism on the part of individual officers.

“Cops are the front-line enforcers for the capitalist system that operates on the basis of exploitation and oppressing people, and needs to have people under control,” Dix said. “If it were just racist cops, they’d be punished when they acted on that racism.”

A bit later, Dix spoke into a loudspeaker as he urged Harlem residents to attend a program on revolution being held Sunday at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

As the protestors marched a short time later from the Adam Clayton Powell State Office Building to Harlem Hospital, 18-year-old Dez Camara, of the Ya Ya Network, said it was important for youth to speak out.

“They say young people, we just like to sit back and complain,” Camara said. “But we’re actually taking initiative after school.”

Camara suggested many people declined to protest against police brutality out of fear. But he said protests like Wednesday’s could help to change that dynamic, and added that, over the years, he himself had come to see demonstrations as meaningful actions.

“When I was in 7th or 8th grade and I saw something like this, I would just laugh at them,” Camara said. “Now I see why they’re doing it.”

As the protestors passed West Harlem Fried Chicken on 341 Lenox Ave, an elderly female bystander noted the march had grown quiet. “Come on, let me hear you all!” the woman yelled at the marchers.

The crowd responded with energetic chants of “They say get back/we say fight back!”

Mathis Chiroux, an Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) member, who was one of 15 people arrested at a protest outside the final presidential debate at Hofstra University last week, told the crowd that police had violently pushed back the group of non-violent demonstrators; in the process, Chiroux said, police horses trampled his friend and fellow IVAW member, Nick Morgan, leaving Morgan unconscious. Chiroux also said that officers had knocked several others to the ground.

The Web site of NYC Indymedia shows photos of Morgan taken after the demonstration.

The IVAW vets and their supporters had been attempting to enter the debate site so that Chiroux and fellow IVAW member Kris Goldsmith could ask Barack Obama, and John McCain, respectively, one question each: Chiroux wanted to ask Obama if, given his stated opposition to the Iraq War, he would be willing to support military servicemen who refused to fight in Iraq; Goldsmith wanted to ask McCain about what he viewed as the candidate’s record of voting against funding for vets.

“We are all standing together,” Chiroux told the Horizon shortly before addressing fellow demonstrators, “to oppose injustices committed by the state on its own people.”

Speaking a few minutes later to the crowd, Chiroux linked police brutality in the U.S. with wars abroad.

“I oppose Americans oppressing Iraqis,” Chiroux said. “And I oppose Americans oppressing Americans.”