Crandolph’s Barbaric Yawp

Yet another tale of Philadelphia Police brutality and DA office overprosecution.  This disturbing email was in my inbox from my friend Alison, who as a former social worker in grad school for same is surely a threat to society.  Keep in mind that this is how we’re treating college educated whites and Latinos; one shudders to think about the undereducated African-American population (or clearly working class whites, of the sort roughed up at this year’s Wing Bowl).

I’m going to attempt to help these folks get some representation and press, a small step in the latter direction starting right here:

"I was with a group of friends last Saturday night — there were 6 of us
in total. A German, Spaniard, and Mexican — all documented — and 3 white
Americans. It’s a little after 2 am. We’ve had some drinks, but are far
from wasted. we head down to South street to grab some pizza at Lorenzo’s.
There are 3, maybe 4, cops outside the restaurant. Immediately, they start
giving our friend Sergio a hard time about smoking a cigarette outside the
restaurant. He was waiting for his girlfriend Erica who was getting
some slices and the only moment when he even approached the door was to pass
her some money.

A minute later, two more guys in our group, Peter and Martin, walk up
and are also finishing their smokes outside before walking into the
restaurant. The cops tell them they can’t stand there. Peter and Martin question
this, but there’s no resistance. They finish smoking, go in, get their pizza,
and we all move over to the corner to eat.

At this point, a guy who’s not in our group heads into Lorenzo’s, got a
slice, and had a similar exchange with the cops while he stood outside
the restaurant eating. A few minutes later, this guy is getting handcuffed
and tossed in a police car. Peter starts moving toward the scene to inquire
about why they’re arresting him and the cops (there are at least 6 at
this point) tell him to stay out of it. He asks again and one of the cops
charges toward him, grabs the pizza box out of his hand, pushes him against a
building and cuffs him.

My friend Todd at this point says the cop is "pathetic" and asks what
ordinance they are basing their use of force on. Two cops then rush
Todd, slam him on the sidewalk. One pins his neck down with his boot, while
the other cuffed him. Martin and I, who are standing in the middle of this
assault, again question this use of force and demand that we have an
explanation of why they’re restraining Todd. This led to Martin and I
also being cuffed.

At this point, Todd and Peter are put in a car and taken to the station
on 9th and South. I’m still asking for answers, Martin is standing by
quietly, only asking the cop not to call him "dude." The officer that cuffed me
continued to tell me that we should have minded our own business and
then he assured me "don’t worry hon, we’re gonna let you go. Just calm down." 
I ask why they would let me go but continue to arrest Martin — no answer to
that, just more suggestions that I relax, and take the opportunity to be
released.  So they take off my cuffs, put Martin in the car, and that’s that.
They’re off to the station.

I walk down to 9th st, south street is dead, nothing happening. Until I
get to the station, where I meet Sergio and Erica, who are talking to 4
young black kids whose friend was just arrested for — you’ll love this –
"attempted urination." The kid insists he had no clothing removed and
was doing nothing but standing by a wall. Didn’t even have to pee.

At this point, we wait and wait for Todd, Peter, and Martin to be
released and have one of the cops who assaulted Todd come out to tell us we
"might as well head out because they’re going to jail." This is the same guy who,
on the ride to the station, were catcalling some women on the street, and
telling todd and peter that "they’d be getting laid while they were
sitting in jail tonight."

So eventually, they guys were all discharged with completely inflated
police reports, charges of failure to disperse, and a court date for today at
8:30am. Todd had a pretty large bruise on his jawbone, which we took
pictures of that night.

Peter, Todd, and Martin all went to court this morning, pleaded not
guilty and and the DA added the charge of disorderly conduct to the charge of
refusing to disperse. There’s now another trial on May 23rd.  Sergio, Erica, and I are all hoping to testify as witnesses to all this nonsense, but these guys really need a good lawyer."

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 28th, 2005 at 8:06 am and is filed under Current Affairs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.