Michael Bloomberg Handschu Agreement

Note how NYPD filmed the evacuation of Liberty Square/Zuccotti Park :

Are NYPD Intelligence Division violating terms of the Handschu Agreement ?

On September 6, 2012, activists against the Fracking Pipeline that is proposed to run through the West Village organised a demonstration along the West Side Highway. At that protest, a white shirt police officer was caught video taping lawful political activities of the protesters. If the protesters were only engaged in lawful political activities on September 6, as it surely does appear, then does the monitoring of the protesters by the NYPD not violate the Handschu Agreement ?

The Handschu agreement is a court ruling from the case Handschu v. Special Services Division, 605 F.Supp. 1384, affirmed 787 F.2d 828, that brought about guidelines that regulate police behavior in New York City with regard to police monitoring of citizens' political activity (Wikipedia).

A large coalition of activist groups accused police of compiling information to punish and repress lawful dissent, according to Wikipedia.

For the last year, the NYPD and the Bloomberg administration have been monitoring the Occupy Wall Street movement since before activists began their occupation in Liberty Square. In 2011, NYPD used camcorders to videotape protesters during a march against the execution of Troy Davis. On one occasion, in 2012, Occupy activists caught the NYPD engaged in monitoring the lawful political activities by #OWS.

Because New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg gives direct orders to NYPD, what kind of approval has he made about any illegal monitoring acts by the New York Police Department ? Does this video appear to show that NYPD Intelligence Division assault reporters, block news cameras, and attack the Freedom of the Press to benefit Mayor Bloomberg ?

Stop and Frisk

Bob Herbert of NYTimes : End the NYPD policy of ''stop and frisk''

The New York Times columnist Bob Herbert has published an opinion essay, in which Mr. Herbert asks Gov. David Patterson to sign into law a bill that would end the New York City Police Department's unconstitutional practise of making a list of innocent citizens who have been ''stoped and frisked'' by cops.

". . . Allowing the police to continue accumulating these permanent files on the innocent, an abomination in and of itself, would also encourage the cops to continue their Jim Crow stop-and-frisk policy, which has led to the systematic harassment and humiliation of young black and Latino residents who have done absolutely nothing wrong.

This racist policy needs to stop — and stop now . . . ."

"The Police Department has compounded this outrage by loading information on these innocent New Yorkers into its permanent database of stop-and-frisk encounters. The database is one of the first stops for cops investigating actual crimes. Thus, these innocent individuals become a permanent focus of the police, not because of anything they’ve done wrong but primarily because of their ethnic background . . . ."

Separately, The New York Times published information that indicated that, "Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg 'will urge the governor to veto the bill,' a spokesman, Jason Post, said."

Remember, this is the same mayor, who ordered the NYPD to spy on and illegally arrest and detain thousands of protesters to the 2004 Republican National Convention. When it comes to civil liberties and civil rights, our mayor is incapable of knowing what is the right thing to do.