Post 90 - June 9, 2020

Day 90…

Another beautiful morning in New York City.

According to my phone app, it is going to get up to 88 degrees here today (that’s 31 for my pals overseas). The sky is a clear vibrant blue, unfiltered by the brown dulling haze that usually permeates the city.

Because of the shutdown there is far less pollution in the air. Fewer people are out so the energy on the street is just a fraction of what it was in pre-COVID times. New York’s usual smell is one of rotting food and urine - something that was almost a point of pride for those of us who love living here - but these days it just smells… clean.

Yesterday, I rode my bicycle downtown to Washington Square Park, went to a rally and then walked home - a round trip of about nine miles.  I wanted to see what was going on in the city. What it felt like.

Everything is still boarded up.  Fifth Avenue is a long brown corridor of raw plywood. The last few nights have been peaceful and largely without violence. The curfew has been lifted. People were out walking, but there is still not really anywhere to go so there was no sense of urgency anywhere. Nobody is rushing to get to a meeting or an appointment.

The rally in Washington Square Park was thoughtful. It was a group of maybe five hundred to a thousand people gathered around the fountain. There was a kind of performance art thing happening in the dry fountain bed with somebody behind a desk that had been set up and somebody else in leather shorts and a harness on a blanket. People spoke passionately and people listened.

We entered into Phase 1 of our re-opening yesterday, but the only thing I noticed that was different was that Buy Buy Baby and The Container Store were both now opened for curb-side pick-up. Non-essential construction was allowed to begin. But, as essential construction restarted some weeks ago, nothing much changed about the city’s soundscape. Essential and non-essential construction sound exactly the same.

There’s only one Black Lives Matter march scheduled for later today in Manhattan down at City Hall. There are five others scheduled in the other boroughs.

Today, though, is the day of George Floyd’s funeral and burial.

An hour ago, a city council meeting on public safety and police misconduct started.

All of the demonstrations and marches, and even the riots, have had an effect. The people who change things have heard enough that they have actually started some long overdue discussions.

In Minneapolis on Sunday, nine out of the thirteen City Council members stood up in a rally and announced that they intended to vote to dismantle the police department.

The Mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, issued a statement saying that he was all for reform but would not support actually dismantling the department. He signed a temporary order banning the use of chokeholds and requiring that other officers intervene and report if they witness excessive force.

He was booed.

The University of Minnesota ended its agreement with the Minneapolis Police Department to provide their on-campus security.

How is this possible? How does this make any sense? How will Minneapolis be policed without a police force? When the very people who are advocating for the removal of the police department are attacked and mugged, who will they call? How does a city survive without 911?

Seven years ago, Camden, New Jersey dissolved and shut down its’ Police Department. Before that, Camden was often listed among the most violent cities in the United States. Since disbanding their Police Department, the crime rate in Camden has dropped by HALF.

Several smaller towns across the country have had to close their policing units because of lack of funds to pay for them. In Camden, however, that decision was made in order to root out corruption.

Camden has 75,000 residents. Open air drug markets were common. Violent crime was everywhere, and it was continuing because the Police were being paid off. Lawsuits against the department alleged that officers were routinely planting evidence on suspects, reports were often fabricated, and officers lied under oath when they testified.

Camden got rid of its’ old Police Department completely and created a new one from scratch. Once the department was disbanded, 88 people were released from prison and their cases were overturned.

Were you to join the police force in Camden, New Jersey today, the first thing that you would be told to do is to go out, knock on all of the doors of the people on your beat and talk to them on a one to one basis. This kind of community-oriented policing encourages problem solving over violence and incarceration. This allows the officers to find out who the people they are protecting are, and what they are concerned about.

There has been an attempt at diversifying the force to better reflect the population they are representing. The officers even host neighborhood barbeques and ice cream parties and, in an area that was once called “heroin alley” show drive in movies.

It all sounds hopelessly too good to be true and lefty-feel-good but disbanding the Police Department and rebuilding it HAS improved the crime rate in Camden.

Will the same thing work in Minneapolis?

Camden is less than a fifth the size of Minneapolis. Camden is predominantly African American while Minneapolis has a white European majority.

Here in New York, Governor Cuomo announced that he plans to sign ten different pieces of legislation in the process of being enacted by local lawmakers. These proposed laws will criminalize chokeholds, open up police disciplinary records, and require courts to report the racial and demographic data for all low-level offenses. Another would require New York officers to wear body cameras.

So, while there is only one Black Lives Matter rally scheduled for today in New York City, that does not mean that the fight is over. Not by a long shot.

Have the marches and rallies done any good?

Well, Governor Cuomo announced that he plans to sign ten different pieces of legislation in the process of being enacted by local lawmakers here in New York. Some of this legislation have been pushed by reformists for YEARS. Not only could the advocates of the bills not get these laws voted on prior to this, they couldn’t even get the SPONSORS of these bills to bring them up for a vote.

The international reaction to the killing of George Floyd by Officer Derek Chauvin and his partners has changed something.

Mr. Floyd will be laid to rest in Houston today.

It seems unlikely, however, that the movement to change that his death sparked will be buried with him.

He will never know it, but he is leaving behind a legacy that has the potential to change much of how we live our lives. Will it change? Will WE change?

I’m a stage manager. I hope for the best and prepare for the worst. The discussions, alone, though, I think, are happening at a level that I can’t recall ever happening before.

Whether Police Departments get disbanded and rebuilt or merely reformed, I have to believe that George Floyd and all of the countless others whose names we have repeated endlessly these passed weeks will not have died in vain.

When we all finally go back to work, we are going to be aware of the racism in others and, more importantly, the racism in ourselves, in a way that we may not have been aware of before.

I believe that things will change. They must. It is incumbent upon us to keep this momentum going.

Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Philandro Castile, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Rodney King, Malice Green, Abner Louima, Amadou Dialo, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, Laquan McDonald, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Antwon Rose, Jr. …

George Floyd.

Rest in Power.