HAT TIP: Black Electorate, By Amadi Ajamu, NY INDY MEDIA
A human rights attorney known for handling cases of police brutality became a victim of police abuse last Thursday evening in Brooklyn. Attorney Michael Tarif Warren and his wife Evelyn, who is also an attorney, were driving along Vanderbilt Ave around 6:00 pm, when they witnessed NYPD officers “kicking and stomping” a handcuffed young black man. The Warrens pulled over to help.
Warren, a high profile attorney who has been practicing law for 28 years, said “We saw a young kid being chased by a horde of policemen across a McDonald’s parking lot. They tackled him and immediately put handcuffs on him. Then Sergeant Talvy, who appeared to be in charge, began kicking him in the head and ribs, and stomping him on the neck.” The other police officers followed suit. “They literally gave this kid a beating which was unconscionable.”
“Not only as people of conscience and moral decency, but as lawyers, we said this is outrageous.” They arrived and stood “more than ten feet away,” he said. Mr. Warren told Sergeant Talvy they were lawyers, and told him to stop and just take the young man to the precinct. In response he said, “Talvy shouted, I don’t give a f**k who you are, get the f**k back in your car!”
They returned to their car, and Mr. Warren began to write down the license plate numbers of the police vehicles as they watched them put the bleeding young man in a car. “Then Talvy comes to my car and viciously attacks me, repeatedly punching me through the window. Shouting, ‘Get out of the car!’ He dragged me out of the car, ripping my shirt and pants. My wife, very upset, asked him why are you doing this? He then punched her in the face.” Both were arrested and taken to the 77th precinct charged with obstruction, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest.
Michael Tarif Warren, has handled many police misconduct cases in the black community, including the shocking police murder of graffiti artist Michael Stewart, and Yvonne Smallwood, who was beaten to death by police in the Bronx. He also handled the case exonerating the five young black teenagers falsely convicted of raping the white bank executive “Central Park Jogger.”
Quickly, word of the Warrens arrest spread, and several hundred people descended on the 77th Precinct demanding his release. Organizations including the December 12th Movement, 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, Malcolm X Grassroots, International Action Center, CEMOTAP, the Muslim community, the Haitian community and many others were present and several media outlets were on hand.
NYC Councilman Charles Barron, Attorneys Roger Wareham, Reginald Haley, and Marisa Benton began negotiating their release with Brooklyn’s top brass, including Community Affairs Chief Douglas Zeigler, Brooklyn Borough Commander Chief Gerald Nelson, and 77th Precinct Executive Officer Michael Marino. At approximately 10:30 PM Evelyn Warren was released with a DAT (desk appearance ticket), Michael Warren was released with a DAT at 11:30 PM.
Councilman Barron and other community activists are demanding Talvy be fired and that Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hines “drop the charges (against the Warrens) and charge the police.”
Barron further criticized recent NYPD policy of making cops who kill or assault people take Breathalyzer tests for alcohol. “We need to stop the killing. Police who murder and assault us must be charge with crimes and put in jail. That is the only deterrent.”
Evelyn Warren added, “We are professionals, if they do this to us in broad daylight on a crowded street, what do they do in the dark when no one is around? That’s what I’m concerned about. Officer Talvy must go and Police Commissioner Kelly must go, because his policy allows this behavior to continue.”
If charges against them are not dropped, Michael and Evelyn Warren vow to take the case to trial and use it as a community mobilizing and educating tool to fight police brutality.
Skeptical Brotha 
I’m not surprised. I’m pissed. But, you know the saying,
” One day you’re going to mess with the wrong Negro“?
I believe for Sgt. Talvy, that day has finally arrived.
New Year’s Revolution – By Hakim Bellamy
There was a time when officers of the law were respected
They were “peace officers”
More concerned with deterring crime than prosecuting it
Working with the community instead of against it
This year
(Singing Auld Lang Syne)“Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and ne’er brought to mind?”
I’d have to ask the families of Bell and Diallo
As New Year’s was on a Sunday this year, let us pray
That APD resolves to be different
Instead of revolve to be hit…MEN
Give me one good cop
And I’ll give you one less disillusioned, revolutionary hell bent on retribution instead of transformation.
Give me one good cop
And I’ll give you one less kid who wants to rep his curb,
One less mirage deferred
Turned sandstorm, quicksand-to-hand, spinning wheels
“Lex, Land or a Path…”
One less dirty dozen with a badge, “…who didn’t know the half”
One less proud parent
Chest poked out like Pops when “Pac-ito” passes promise and proceeds to pedal on paths paved with potential ‘til (crash sound into dispatch sound)
Dispatch.
The fast traction slips when Dad gets bagged, gagged and jacked for Driving While Black by the boys in the bluest gang
One good cop
And one less version of me
Cause according to the TV?
I always fit the description of a suspect in a local homicide
When the trip is,
Statistics say I look more the like the victim
Internal affairs says it’s a black thing, (Applause and guns drawn motion) CLAP-on-black crime
A healthy serving for one less family seated at a buffet of violence
One less family hungry for a provider
All we got is religion so we fast, dollars
Malnourished so the fast dollars feed antsy hands that shake from BET video withdrawal
( “I got that thuggin’ love…”)
Cops itchy trigger fingers, mothers scratch crucifixes to combat sacrificial examples made out of us…
We actually relate to the officers better than their families ‘cause we too are in the line of fire everyday…It’s “Dis” stressful
Ghandi would be ashamed, cause we are the war we don’t wanna see in the world…
And art imitates the street, not vice versa but Miami Vice…
I got one too many more than ONE GOOD KID,
With one bad cop that stopped her from Pebble-in-Bedrock to Peddling snow in a drought for dessert
When it coulda been one more kid that wants to protect and serve
Grow up into ONE GOOD COP
Who’d use The Force to start the “The Truth Police”
Kinda like the Fashion Police, but twice as blunt…
Instead of citations reading, “That’s hideous”
They return repossessed reparation, and give tickets to freedom reading,
“That sh*t was f*cked up, we’ll upgrade you to first class, aisle or window?”
The “One Good Cop” Revolution
Resolution Double Oh Seven
If you’re in it for the bar fly women, fast cars and lethal gadgets we’ll make you a movie star instead of this not-so-secret agent routine
Then you can still get back at the jocks that kicked your ass in high school without hurting innocent civilians…maybe date Lindsey Lohan instead?
She’s a sucker for a man in uniform.
Resolution Twelve-Thirty-One
Yeah, the New Year’s one…don’t base next year’s success on getting more arrests than you did last year…though the idea of rehabilitation in corrections is a myth, being a “Good Cop” doesn’t have to be…
Resolution 4-1-1
If you see a fellow officer sprinkling some crack on a brother, powdering a crime scene that had just a wee bit too much color, learn from some of them snitches the department keeps around for ego strokin’ and billy-club lovin’ and drop dime on dirty brethren in the Fraternal Order
Resolution 9-1-1
Out of Order
This is the Revolution
You’re in breach of contract with the community
The Truth Police
National Guard of the law
I thought, of all the patriots, you’d know it’s textbook history book
Abuse of power causes the people to take up arms
And the abuse of those people, already “up in arms” can turn once open arms into suicide bombs
Cause we won’t take being profiled for long
Soon we’ll a bout face-to-face
They say “the People shouldn’t fear they’re government”, it should be the government in fear of us, and what we gotta say….
The Truth is
Sniping nappyheads at a distance is a welcomed challenge for the gamesman that has everything
The Truth is
Any inmate can tell you the biggest, baddest gang in the land wears neither blood nor blue, but black and badges
The Truth is
No, the perpetrator ain’t always right, but neither is the police officer
The Truth is
You’re a property-protecting pawn,
A have-not that the have’s play against other have-nots when they wouldn’t even let you piss in an outhouse on Scotland’s Yard
Truth is
Being a good cop is as easy as being an honest politician
It’s hard to find one who’s not drowning
In a system that perverts the pure until they genuinely believe they can baptize the smell of sex out of their love child…
So the best intentions going in are often the biggest regrets coming out
You ask the kids where I grew up
What they fear more, the streets or the people paid to protect them
More would say the “protectors”
In a system of winners and losers, and we’re forced to pick the strongest side to order to survive…
On one,
We got a mother that sometimes eats her young
On the KRS-other-One
An Over-seer charged with keeping me with-IN-side the chalk-OUT-lines
Mr. Officer?
If you ask me which side I think you are on…
Honestly, I’d have to say, it ain’t mine.
It’s past time for Kelly to go…how many more homocides and beat downs will it take?
More proof that law enforcement peronnell should be involved in intensive anger management classes during there training. Individuals with guns, tasers, and sticks must have control of there emotions.
Shannon Munford M.A. MFT CAMF
http://www.daybreakservices.com
Thanks for the post…needed to know that. Honestly, it’s time for the gangsters and preachers to come to an accord on this. Seems to me that this could be resolved easily enough…just need to change the calculus. Kelly can stay – if he can made a prisoner and lightning rod to galvanize the community. Sometimes an enemy who is given a 2nd chance and a short leash can be yoked within an inch of his political life for as long as need be.
Sharon Mumford, not only should police officers engage in anger management periodically while they are on the force, police departments need to do psychological or psychiatric profile/evaluations of new recruits and officers that get into repeated trouble or have numerous grievances against them.
This way, police departments and cities could weed out ticking time bombs.
What happens though is that police unions won’t go for it and politicos are afraid because they don’t want to appear anti-police.
Regarding this story, I think Mr. and Mrs. Warren, while noble, should have stayed in the car and taken video of the incident with their camera phone – if possible.
Videos speak volumes, which is why the ACLU has issued video cameras to residents in St. Louis neighborhoods where police brutality is a constant.
Shannon Munford, I apologize for butchering your name. in my earlier post.
It was courageous of the Warren’s to intervene on behalf of that youngster. I can’t say they should have stayed in their car. Without knowing whether or not that youth had just committed some heinous crime OR was simply in the wrong skin in the wrong clime, I must say that the Warren’s are to be commended.
By the way, the problem with the police is systemic, timeless and international. When two factors change, we won’t have a problem with police – 1) the material condition of Black folk improve across the board; 2) folks commit to acts of retribution.
Those two steps are certainly long-term solutions – and do not minimize the need for short-term interventions such as those mentioned by Terrence. After all, these intractable problems should be addressed with a quickness – even if we can’t expect full eradication until these other conditions are met.
Finally, I believe that those “ticking time bombs” are particularly attractive recruits for particular law enforcement recruiters. While these individuals are a danger to themselves, their partners, spouses and the community, recruiters, departments and law enforcement administrators still identify with the “Dirty Harry” type. They have the capacity to empathize with these “tortured souls” and excuse their excesses. Hence, the importance of accelerating our path to meeting the two long-term solutions…
It’s time to shift the bullseye from Black to Blue.
I really do hope you can see the glaring one-sidedness of your report of these events. You have people commenting as if what you wrote was “proof” of anything. Nice write-up, but these are neither facts nor is it a “report.” This is an editorial hardly based on factual evidence.
Because Mr Warren claims a youth was being “beaten” for no reason we must believe it? Do we *really* know what was going on? Was the kid even cuffed? Was he resisting? Physical force isn’t pretty, and I think often people expect it to look nice and clean as it does on TV. Real life isn’t TV, and physical force is ugly. And it’s ugly whether or not it’s justified. Warren claims he himself was punched for no reason and his wife was punched for asking a simple question? Forgive me if I find this dubious. People like to make themselves sound more innocent than they usually are in any given situation.
While it is unfortunate, the opinion of ‘Anonymous Swine’ will probably best describe the outcome of this situation. The word of a hostile minority couple against a few of New York’s finest engaged in securing the peace for the majority of good
citizens, will not go very far – no matter how loud they holler. I was happy to see that a couple of the comments mentioned
the need to use video in these instances. Furthermore, what kind of street wise human rights lawyers are the Warrens. They above any body else should have known what would be the result of their tepid intervention. Didn’t they have access to some network of like minded folks who could immediately act to effectively engage these cops. What did they expect the good Seargent to say in response to their query as to why they suddenly found themselves being assaulted. Has the FBI been called in on this. An incident such as this occurring in public in a major city is an abomination and the first I heard of it was on this blog. I live in Chicago. We need to have a different strategy if we are to stop this kind of shit from happening or at least when it happens, making sure that somebody pays. Once cops realize that the price for such behavior is too much, they will stop doing it. The way this is being dealt with at this point seems, to me at least, likely to give the most weight to the position of ‘Anonymous Swine'[Comment# 9] and that status quo is hardly acceptable.