#shutitdownnyc

September 17th NYC Day of Action against Racism, Gentrification & Police Brutality Schedule of Events as of  9/13/2015 : To add your community action or to participate in a scheduled event please email : [email protected] or call/text(646) 820-6039

7am-10am:  RUSH-HOUR Visibility & Information Actions at major Transit Hubs  - Please bring your banners and help flyer at :

Barclays Center/Atlantic Terminal

Broadway Junction

Flatbush Junction

Add your Train Stop

10am - 5pm: Neighborhood and Community Actions

Got a landlord, developer or politician who needs to be held accountable in your neighborhood? Community groups are encouraged to organize speak outs, press conferences, rallies, information tabling, etc

12-2pm Protest called by FUREE in front of the NYCHA management office in Farragut Houses at 251 Nassau Street, Brooklyn, NY

2:30pm: TAKE IT to City Hall! Join BAN for a Press Conference on the steps of City Hall

4:30pm:  Fight the Rezoning of Our Communities! Action at New York City Department of City Planning

22 Reade St

5:30pm: Citywide Convergence/ Speakout in Lower Manhattan, Canal & Bowery

6:30pm: March from Lower Manhattan to Brooklyn across Manhattan Bridge

8:00pm: Demonstration at Barclays Center

Want to get involved in the work of The Brooklyn Anti-Gentrification Network (BAN)? Join the new BAN community organizing list : https://groups.google.com/d/forum/the-brooklyn-anti-gentrification-community-organizing-list

Endorsers of September 17th NYC Day of Action against Racism, Gentrification & Police Brutality as 9/13/2015  

*Denotes member organizations of the Brooklyn Anti-Gentrification Network (BAN)

Al-Awda New York: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition

Align Brooklyn

*Artist Studio Affordability Project

Black Alliance for Just Immigration -BAJI

Believe Out Loud

BreakAWAY

Bronxites for NYPD Accountability

Brooklyn Congregations United

Brooklyn Laundry Social Club

Brooklyn Movement Center

Brooklyn Solidarity Network

*Bushwick Housing Independence Project

Coastline Tenants Association

Criminal Justice Initiative

East Harlem Preservation, Inc.

Educated Little Monsters (ELM)

*El Grito de Sunset Park

*Equality for Flatbush

*Families United for Racial and Economic Equality (FUREE)

FIERCE

Fight Imperialism Stand Together (FIST)

Freedom Trainers

Globe - The LGBTQ Justice Project of Make the Road New York

I Grew Up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn Facebook Page

International Action Center

International Working Women's Day Coalition

Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions, USA (ICAHD-USA)

JACK

Jago Community

Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFRE)

Just Info

Law Firm of Abdula Greene

Law Office of Geoffrey Schotter

*Movement to Protect The People

New York Latina Advocacy Network

New Yorkers Against Bratton

*Northwest Bushwick Community Group

NYC Shut It Down

Organizing Committee of the Crown Heights Tenants Union

People's Climate Arts

Peoples Power Assemblies

People's Theatre Project

Picture the Homeless Housing Committee

Prisoners are People Too, Inc

Purpose Productions

Queens Neighborhoods United

*Reclaim Bushwick

Release Aging People in Prison (RAPP)

Resistance in Brooklyn

Resource Generation NYC Chapter

Ridgewood Tenant's Union

Right to the City

Rising Tide NYC

South Asian Fund for Education, Scholarship and Training (SAFEST)

Street Vendor Project

Sunset Park Restoration

Sunset Parker Facebook Group

*The 320 Sterling Street Tenants Association

*The Audre Lorde Project

*The Bushwick Cop Watch Team of Peoples' Justices for Community Control & Police Accountability

The Commons Choir

*The Crystal House Project of The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement

*The East Flatbush Cop Watch Team of Peoples' Justices for Community Control & Police Accountability

The Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC)

The Laundry Workers Center

The NYC Jails Action Coalition

The Sullivan-Ludlam-Stoddard Neighborhood Association

The Sylvia Rivera Law Project

The White Anti-Racist Group/European Dissent

Theatre of the Oppressed NYC

*Third Root Community Health Center

UPROSE

VOCAL-NY

Women’s Fightback Network

The Brooklyn Anti-Gentrification Network (BAN) is a mass-based coalition of tenants, homeowners, block associations, anti-police brutality groups, legal and grassroots organizations working together to end the rampant gentrification and displacement of low to middle income residents of Brooklyn, New York.

footage from Athens-Clarke police officer Jonathan Fraser's body camera during the arrest of Michael Roquet.

Clarke County police officer, Jonathan Fraser, is facing aggravated assault charges

Fraser told investigators that Roquet became combative and resisted arrest.

He struck Roquet several times with baton, including once in the head...which is considered deadly force.

Chief Freeman says officers are trained to deescalate situations, and noting Roquet did required a use of force.

Fraser tried to arrest Roquet, but, according to police documents, Roquet “refuses to comply with his orders."

Fraser's description of what happened that night, which he wrote in the incident report, portrays Roquet as the aggressor.  In Fraser's words, Roquet "struck me with his left elbow in my chest," and later "he hit me again with his elbow.... so I struck him [with a baton] in the leg and upper body" and then handcuffed him.

That’s how it looks on paper. But Fraser's own body-cam video added much more detail.

Even though his body cam is sometimes pointed away from the action, investigators concluded that Fraser used his baton to strike Roquet nine times, including striking Roquet once in the head and then striking Roquet twice after Roquet fell to the ground.

“He [Roquet] is not resisting at that point, he is on the ground," said Police Chief Scott Freeman on Friday, as he watched the video of Fraser delivering the final, two blows to Roquet.

Chief Freeman was not the chief at the time of the incident.  He became the chief just after Fraser was fired, a month ago.  Freeman said Friday that Fraser's actions do not represent the standards and professionalism of the department and the other officers.

As Freeman replayed the video of Fraser striking Roquet repeatedly, Freeman was emphatic:  “That is unauthorized use of force, absolutely.  And that is something that is completely intolerable, and something we’re not going to put up with, and we dealt with it appropriately.”

In the department’s official report about the incident, investigators found that Officer Fraser never told anyone that he used his baton to strike Roquet in the head. Using a baton to strike someone in the head is considered deadly force, and the department concluded that, in this case, it constituted excessive force.

Further, Fraser “denied striking Roquet in the head with the baton," attempting to “mislead investigators” about what really happened.

According to the department's findings, Fraser also violated policy by not notifying medical personnel that Roquet might have a head injury as a result of the baton strike to the head.

Athens Attorney Harry Gordon represents Michael Roquet.

"He overreacted, the police officer,” Gordon said Friday . “There’s no question about it.”

Harry Gordon's career has involved both sides of criminal cases, as a prosecutor -- he served as the county’s district attorney -- and as a defense attorney.

Gordon praised police officers and the life-and-death service they perform every day to keep citizens safe.  Gordon said police body cams are useful -- for the police, and for the public.  “There’s just not much anything as far as evidence is concerned that’s better than having a video of it.”

In police documents, Fraser, 46 -- when questioned about his final, two baton strikes while Roquet was on the ground -- said he felt that he was “tunnel visioned” and that he “knows he is out of shape," especially when up against a drunk, but otherwise strong, 19 year old man crouched near to the ground.

Fraser said, "I didn't know if he [Roquet] was going to spring up from that position and continue resisting.  I struck him again on his back."