NYPD: Only One Journalist Was Arrested During Occupy Wall Street. The New York Police Department is drawing fire for saying that stories of multiple journalist arrests during the height of the Occupy Wall Street protests are a "myth. " Paul Browne, a top spokesman for the NYPD, made the comment during an interview with the local Queens Chronicle. He said that only one reporter was arrested. In the interview with him was Ray Kelly, the commissioner of the NYPD: Kelly also said the NYPD was unfairly criticized over its removal of protesters from Zuccotti Park last year, saying the people who were arrested had defied legal orders to leave the park and were pushing through police lines after monitoring department radios to learn what officers were planning. Paul Browne, the deputy commissioner for public information, who accompanied Kelly to the interview, added that only one journalist was arrested during the operation, despite stories to the contrary, which he called "a total myth.
" Related on HuffPost: Kelly talks policy and politics - Queens Chronicle: Queenswide. Misinformation. That’s the problem causing public misperception of the New York Police Department’s policies on issues such as stop and frisk, the monitoring of locations where some individuals could be fomenting terrorism and the clearing of protesters from Zuccotti Park, according to Commissioner Ray Kelly. The department’s policy on detaining suspicious people and searching them for weapons or drugs is nothing new, Kelly says.
Its investigations into potential terror hot spots, many in the Muslim community, is not blanket surveillance and is perfectly legal, he insists. Officers did not wantonly manhandle journalists as they emptied Zuccotti Park in Manhattan of the Occupy Wall Street protesters last November, he asserts. The department is doing more with less, as its ranks have fallen from about 41,000 at the peak to a little under 35,000 now, the commissioner said. “Our population is increasing,” he said. “We are saving lives here,” he said. “It’s hard to put a time frame on it. NYPD Spokesman Calls Reporters' Arrests During OWS Eviction "A Total Myth"
[UPDATE BELOW] Although it's widely thought that cops arrested reporters while they were evicting the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Zuccotti Park last November, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne says anybody who believes that probably also thinks Bigfoot was abducted by aliens as part of the government's 9/11 coverup. "A total myth," is how Browne described that notion during an exclusive interview with the Queens Chronicle: [NYPD Commissioner Ray] Kelly also said the NYPD was unfairly criticized over its removal of protesters from Zuccotti Park last year, saying the people who were arrested had defied legal orders to leave the park and were pushing through police lines after monitoring department radios to learn what officers were planning.
Paul Browne, the deputy commissioner for public information, who accompanied Kelly to the interview, added that only one journalist was arrested during the operation, despite stories to the contrary, which he called “a total myth.” Stop-and-Frisk Demonstration Doesn’t Reform Broken System. June 20, 2012 — The leadership of the New York Civil Liberties Union today cautioned that a stop-and-frisk demonstration for reporters in the Bronx was little more than stagecraft that will do nothing to reform a practice that regularly violates the constitutional rights of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers from communities of color. “No amount of stagecraft or role-play changes the reality for people of color on the streets of New York who live in fear that every trip to the corner store or walk home from school will end up against the wall or face down on the ground,” said NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman. “The mayor and police commissioner have been talking a lot about courtesy lately but New York City does not have a problem with courtesy, or PR – New York City is facing a civil rights crisis.
The silence from the commissioner on changes to the quota system that now drives the stop-and-frisk regime is deafening. OccupiedWSJ : The NYPD gave reporters (w... Spin City: Inside The NYPD's Stop & Frisk Training Facility. The NYPD runs through a stop-and-frisk training scenario (Gothamist) Yesterday the NYPD loaded reporters onto a bus and drove them up to the Bronx to view their updated stop-and-frisk training program at the department's Rodman's Neck facility.
The NYCLU immediately dismissed the outing as "stagecraft," but this was better than bad theater. The combination of cloying overtures from the famously brusque NYPD press officers with a training facility that resembled a movie set made the entire experience feel like a Hollywood B-movie, Field Trip: Stop & Frisk.
The surreality ended at the press conference, which followed the live-action demonstrations of three stop-and-frisk scenarios that 1,300 "high-impact" officers (those most likely to conduct stops) have completed since April, and are now required for new recruits. Two of the scenarios involved radio calls, the other a domestic disturbance. The NYPD's training structures (Gothamist) The "block" (Gothamist) Dr. #NYPD enforced media blackout on show by 60h long NYPD footage... Anonymous Releases Sixty Hours of NYPD Footage from Occupy Wall Street Raid. NYPD arrest a young woman just hours after raid on Zuccotti Park began on Nov. 15, 2011 Members of the hacktivist group Anonymous have released sixty hours of footage of the raid by the New York Police Department against Occupy Wall Street on November 15, 2011.
The footage posted is from the NYPD’s Technical Assistance Research Unit (TARU), a surveillance unit that is regularly present at political demonstrations to film police actions. It was posted as a torrent for download late in the evening on September 23, 2012. A tiny sample of the footage, including a statement read by a member of Anonymous, was posted on YouTube. The computerized voice in the video begins, “On November 15, 2011, the NYPD surrounded Zuccotti Park and proceeded to forcefully dismantle the Occupy Wall Street encampment. The statement in the video also suggests the NYPD tampered with videos in the “mini-archive” of footage released to cover up “atrocities” or acts of police brutality committed. Anonymous Video Leak. Anonymous Video Leak. NYPD footage of Zuccotti Park raid leaked. The presence of NYPD TARU (Technical Assistance Response Unit) officers at Occupy protests has long been a source of contention among occupiers and legal observers.
The precise role and remit of the camera-wielding officers is ill-defined; the end product of their constant filming usually goes unseen by those featured in it. However, on Sunday a group claiming Anonymous affiliation released 60 hours of TARU footage from the night of the Zuccotti Park eviction on Nov. 15. The footage is considered particularly relevant in fleshing out the NYPD versus Occupy narrative, since both mainstream and citizen journalists and videographers were forcibly kept away from the park as officers dismantled the encampment and rounded up protesters that night. The release urges that readers share the TARU footage and take note of any glitches or time stamp changes, which might suggest selective editing. “We ask for an unedited version of the tapes,” it notes. NYPD Taru Zuccotti Raid Footage.
Raid on Zuccotti Occupy Police Brutality Anonymous Video.mp4. National Press Photographers Ass: NYPD Letter-10-01-12. NPPA Along With 13 Media Groups Sends Letter to NYPD Regarding Police-Press Relations. NPPA Along With 13 Media Groups Sends Letter to NYPD Regarding Police-Press Relations October 1st, 2012 by Joan Blazich and tagged Access, Mickey H.
Osterreicher, national press photographers association, photographers, photojournalism The National Press Photographer’s Association (NPPA) along with 13 other media organizations sent a letter to the New York Police Department (NYPD) Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly today requesting another meeting to discuss recent police incidents involving journalists in New York City. The first incident desribed in the letter involved the arrest of New York Times photographer Robert Stolarik on August 4, 2012, in the Bronx. “We are also deeply concerned because his arrest appears to be in direct contravention of a 6/2/77 Stipulation and Order in the U.S. “It is our strongly asserted position that while the press may not have a greater right of access than the public, they have no less right either,” Osterreicher wrote.
National Press Photographers Ass: NYPD Letter-10-01-12.