Why Defund the 34th Precinct?
It is easy, especially for upper-middle class people in Washington Heights and Inwood, to feel like police brutality, police mismanagement and the general NYPD treatment of everyday people as criminals, enemies of the state and people generally in need of brutal discipline is someone else’s problem. It definitely happens in the South Bronx, and across Brooklyn. Sure, the police stopped and frisked hundreds of thousands of people, sure once the NYPD was known for planting evidence and bursting into birthday parties guns loaded, but those times are over, right?
Well, no. In many ways, the NYPD still treats Washington Heights and Inwood like occupied territory, zones that need to be prowled, punished and protected. If you have not felt this, then you are of the group the 34th precinct feels themselves to be protecting. If you have not heard stories of the 34th precinct’s miscarriage of justice, then you have been allowing them to brutalize your neighbors ostensibly in your name.
The June Second Mob
On 2nd June - the second night of the curfew - a group of residents and business owners gathered in Inwood (past the curfew), concerned about looting in the area and wondering what to do about it. The 34th Precinct stepped in and instead of sending these people back home, told them to wear white armbands so they could be distinguished from the looters. This group of people (in effect deputized by the 34th precinct) chased and harassed and racially profiled a group of black people later that night, assuming that they were looters.
Malik Ferrer and Fabio Nunez
In 2019, police officers in the 34th precinct arrested a man in front of an Inwood nightclub, and charged him with possession of a weapon. However, three consecutive searches failed to find such a weapon, and only after multiple days did officers “produce” a gun ostensibly hidden in the man’s jacket. As one journalist put it, over the last few years, the precinct has been the subject of evidence planting and excessive force allegations that recall the NYPD’s dark early 1990s era, when a hard-charging plainclothes unit came under federal scrutiny.
This was no isolated incident…
In July 2018, 34th Precinct detective Fabio Nunez allegedly choked and tased Tomas Medina, a 33-year-old Inwood resident, over a noise complaint. According to a Legal Aid database of civil rights lawsuits, Nunez has been sued at least five times since 2005, resulting in at least $220,000 in legal settlements by the city over his conduct. According to civil rights complaints, Nunez was involved in an arrest that left a man with a broken arm, an incident where a man was pummeled with the butt of a gun following a foot chase, and an incident where Nunez and fellow officers allegedly stole cash, three necklaces, a diamond bracelet, and six rings during an arrest at a home on 205th Street.
Police Brutality and the Civilian Complaint Review Board
In 2019, while complaints were dropping in precincts across Manhattan, the number of substantiated complaints against the 34th precinct rose to 66.
CCRB complaints filed against 34th Precinct officers rose from 41 in 2016 to 64 in 2018. At least twenty-seven of the complaints in 2018 involved uses of force. Also that year, 15 officers in the 34th Precinct had complaints against them substantiated by the CCRB, the highest tally of any NYPD precinct.
In fact, More officers (10) in the 34th Precinct had complaints against them substantiated by the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), than any other precinct in Manhattan. CCRB complaints filed against 34th Precinct officers rose from 41 in 2016 to 64 in 2018. At least twenty-seven of the complaints in 2018 involved uses of force. Also that year, 15 officers in the 34th Precinct had complaints against them substantiated by the CCRB, the highest tally of any NYPD precinct.
The Lawsuits
Since 2015, there have been 19 Federal Lawsuits totalling over $90,000 in damages. One of the highest settlement amounts and third highest count of lawsuits in Manhattan.
Nuisance Abatement Blackmail
In 2016, an eighteen-month-long pro-publica investigation discovered that the NYPD, particularly the 34th precinct, had been using arcane laws to blackmail businesses into letting them set up cameras that they can access and control at any time. During this time-frame, the department employed this tactic on 67 businesses, ranking second citywide over that time. Though in 2017 the city passed a law to end the particular practice, it is unclear whether these businesses and many others still have cameras accessible by the police in them. Here is the full article on it.
Covid Policing
The 34th Precinct issued the third highest number of summonses in Manhattan for Covid-19 after Washington Heights South and Harlem just north of central park (7 summonses and 1 arrest versus Harlem/Central Park North 10 summonses 1 arrest). Though racial data is not available. Covid policing overwhelmingly hurt black and brown communities, with them being hit by around 90% of Covid-related arrests and summons.
All of This While Our Public Services Struggle
Washington Heights has been one of the hardest hit neighborhoods in New York City by the opioid crisis. Despite businesses across Washington Heights stand empty, the only drug addiction non-profit, the Corner Project lost its space has been forced to operate solely from vans parked around the neighborhood. Meanwhile, the NYPD has continued to arrest drug users across the neighborhood.
As of 2018, moreover, schools in Washington Heights and Inwood served some of the highest number of homeless students in the city. At the same time, Washington Heights was becoming ever more gentrified, and its schools ever more segregated, with some of the highest rates in Manhattan of students going to school outside of their districts. Washington Heights neighborhood schools are thus underfunded and force to stretch their budgets, while the police receive more and more money every year.