Tag Archives: police misconduct

Performer arrested at Metropolitan Avenue

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BuskNY and the performing community were disturbed to learn of a new wrongful arrest. A longtime, well-loved performer was arrested early this morning at Metropolitan Avenue, a key station for Brooklyn performers. Fortunately, he was well-prepared: a copy of the rules of conduct was in play, and the full arrest was documented on video:

BuskNY is preparing a public response to this arrest. Please reach out if you would like to be updated. We thank this performer for standing up to the undocumented and ungrounded ejections that occur daily in New York City — and we believe, as always, that the end of wrongful ejection, ticketing, and arrest is in sight.

10 Favorite NYPD Quotes on Busking

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Heidi Kole posted this brilliant list today at the Subway Diaries. BuskNY has tacked on a couple at the bottom — anyone care to add further?
1. “Oh those rules, yeah I know all about those rules, we don’t care about the rules.”
2. “What rules?”
3. “Heidi, I thought we had an agreement? You wouldn’t sing & I wouldn’t bother you?”
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4. “Oh that that First Amendment thing again, we’ve heard of that, it doesn’t matter, you’re still getting a ticket.”

5. (Lean in & Whispered) “This platform is actually a terrorist target”

6. “Technically you’re not doing anything illegal, but you still can’t do it.”
7. “I’m gonna give you a ticket ’cause my supervisor wants to see I’m doing something useful, but once I”m gone you can start singing again.”

8. “Have you ever thought of conforming?”
9. “Don’t start getting rulezy with me.”
10. “I AM THE LAW!” (For proper pronunciation, lean on that first ‘a’ for a bit).

 

 

7/30: Voice from the blogs: our theoretical protection

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One online commenter, writing at Norman LeBrecht’s blog Slipped Disc, had this to say :

“The big problem here is that the NYPD is NOT enforcing the law. In fact the law protects the violinist’s actions. He is being intimidated for no real reason. I have had similar experiences, being threatened by MTA employees etc. When busking I always avoided being arrested, simply because I couldn’t afford the time and money that would go into defending myself, and because I was afraid my instrument would be harmed in the process. The police count on the threat of mistreatment to frighten most buskers into cooperation with their whims — it’s nothing to do with obedience to the law. The police are the ones ignoring the rule of law here.”

He said it better than I can.  We hear the same from other performers: harassment is a regular phenomenon. Further, musicians feel disempowered to fight it, particularly when police will neither read the rules nor create any form of documentation of their harassment short of cuffing us and hauling us away. How can you fight a station eviction later when you were asked to leave verbally? Which agency investigates complaints based on a verbal record? And when an insistence on getting some measly scrap of official paper in order to lodge a complaint leads, as it did in my video, to arrest and detention, will we insist that every performer also be an activist, have a practical knowledge of arrest procedure, wear a sweater to protect against the cold in jail, and have a fund ready to replace his or her instrument? Are those the criteria in order to benefit from the protection of the law in NYC? We are sick and tired of this theoretical law, sick and tired.

Printing the “Music is Legal!” shirts

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The shirts arrived Thursday evening, and since I only had two days available to print them before losing access to my studio space (and I’m spending Sunday helping to install my show at the Painting Center), we had to rush to get them done.

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135 t-shirts

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Printing the first shirt.

With only two people, it took seven or eight hours to finish the front side of all 135 shirts.

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We started with the pink shirts.

My cousin Zeke took a detour into the city on his way up the Appalachian Trail, and he offered to help us print the backs. With his help, we finished them in four hours.

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And he bought us food!

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The print shop’s mustachioed Pratt Cat, who is most often found sleeping in the paper guillotine’s scrap bin, visited us in the silkscreen lab.

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About half of the finished shirts.

Matthew and Kalan will start distributing them to subway performers this week. Remember: Music is Legal!

16/07: Civilian Complaint Review Board

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The original idea for the site was to make legal information about busking accessible online. But, it didn’t take long to see that a jumble of miscellaneous ideas about arrests, complaints, rules, and so forth wouldn’t attract very much traffic, and would consequently be difficult to find through Google, negating the original purpose.

Hence the blog idea — and indeed, I’ve been having a lot of fun sharing stories from underground. (There are so many!) But, it’s time to keep working on the legal aspect, especially now that we have a bit of an audience. We’ll also soon be adding a list of legal posts on the sidebar, so these notes are easily findable for newcomers.

So here’s an important update. Yesterday, I went to the Civilian Complaint Review Board at 40 Rector St., to do an interview in follow-up to a complaint I had filed after my arrest on June 18th.

It’s easy to file a complaint, by the way. Go to this link, and fill out the form or call. You’ll see below why that might be important.

I had actually filed two complaints after the arrest. The first was for wrongful arrest. Essentially, went my complaint, it’s legal to perform, but I was nonetheless arrested for it.

The second was about what the CCRB calls “Abuse of Authority.” When I went back to the Transit District 1 Stationhouse after I was released from Midtown Criminal Court on the 19th, I asked to file a complaint about the arrest. I was told not only that I could not file a complaint there, but in fact that there was no complaint form at all! (As you can see on the CCRB page, that information is not only false, but stationhouses are in fact mandated to accept complaints in person). That conversation ended at that point, because I was threatened with arrest if I didn’t leave the stationhouse.

The CCRB has two ways to pursue complaints. One is to schedule a “Mediation” meeting with the officer in question, and the other is to investigate. However, only certain complaints are in CCRB jurisdiction; the others are referred to other offices like Internal Affairs and the Office of the Chief of Department. (This is, at least, what I was told. I was not the only complainant in the office to experience bureaucracy-induced disorientation!)

When I met with the investigator assigned to my complaint, she immediately knew that the wrongful arrest complaint couldn’t be pursued by the CCRB, because it falls outside their jurisdiction. More on that later.

We did however decide that the abuse of authority complaint could be pursued within the CCRB. So, we did a tape-recorded interview about what happened, and then investigator then asked if I wanted the complaint to go to mediation or to investigation. The process of investigation is outlined in this article by a former investigator that I read last year. The gist of it (as I hazily recall — would that I had more time for this post before getting out the door) is that CCRB investigators make a valiant attempt to substantiate charges, but because they ultimately have no power to impose sanctions, the process is more or less moot.

Point being, I opted for mediation, because it will hopefully lead to a face-to-face meeting with the sergeant who told me I had no way to complain. I have a lot of thinking to do about how to handle that, but my hope is that it could be productive.

And if not, the complaint can always proceed to investigation following the mediation meeting. So, while the CCRB may be unable to impose any kind of sanction, this process still feels tentatively promising with regards to Abuse of Authority.

Now, back to the question of wrongful arrest. My investigator does not make decisions on referrals, and she was not initially able to provide many details on where the complaint could go. (Strange, right? Can I be the only person in NYC to file a complaint over wrongful arrest? Somehow I doubt it).

However, I really worked to advocate for myself and for other buskers who experience harassment. I told her on the record that arrest, harassment, and ignorance of the rules are all widespread problems, as per what I’ve heard in the grassroots, and that I’d like to be heard on that topic, not just about my own arrest. Further, I told her that the NYPD might well be interested in seeking a solution, i.e. reducing the amount of harassment, if the issue is brought to their attention through the right channels.

The end result is ambiguous: my complaint will be reviewed and referred, hopefully within the next two months. The theory I fleshed out with the investigator is that my personal wrongful arrest claim will go to the bureau responsible for those complaints, I believe the Office of the Chief of Department, and that follow-up on performers’ rights may, fingers crossed, be brought to the notice of Internal Affairs for a meeting.

So, touch wood on that one. I do hope this post outlines many reasons why the CCRB can help us with self-advocacy, and would love to hear from performers who have had experiences with CCRB in the past. And, I’ll keep the updates coming about all of these threads — especially the possibility of Internal Affairs!