Pro-police-state 'experts' picketed at forum
Special to Workers World
Hartford, Conn.
Is Hartford the next social experiment for the police
"experts" who have been intensifying police brutality and
racism under the guise of "homeland security"?
That's the question activists are asking after an Oct. 12
"public forum" sponsored by the pro-business Hartford Courant
newspaper. While protesters picketed outside, the invited
guests talked about ways to make the Hartford Police Department
a more effective instrument of repression.
A particularly unsavory trio addressed the forum.
Hartford's new police chief, Patrick Harnett, was first.
Harnett is notorious for writing a defense of the New York
police officers who murdered Amadou Diallo in 1999. He compared
the hail of bullets that killed Diallo to a surgeon's mistake
during an operation.
Miami Police Chief Joseph Timoney was second. Timoney won
applause from corporate America for his use of police riots
against peaceful demonstrators during the Free Trade Area of
the Americas protests a year ago.
Third up was Heather MacDonald, an editor for City Journal,
a magazine that boasts of having been the "idea factory" for
the right-wing Rudolph Giuliani administration in New York
City. MacDonald's articles attack undocumented workers,
criminalize people of color, and defend racial profiling.
Only two days before the forum, the Courant had given
extensive coverage to the three in its Sunday edition. Now it
was putting them forward as experts to address the question,
"Is Hartford safe?"
Local activists weren't fooled by the rhetoric about
"safety." Members of the Hartford Bring the Troops Home Now
Committee, the anti-racist group Create Change, and the
Hartford Independent Media Center turned out to picket the
panel. They chanted, "No justice, no peace, no racist police."
They carried signs opposing racial profiling and vowing to
remember Amadou Diallo.
When Josh Blanchfield of the Inde pendent Media Center tried
to enter the hall in order to question the panelists, cops
immediately barred his way into the so-called public forum.
Hartford's population is majority
peo ple of color. There are large African-American, West Indian
and Puerto Rican communities. It is also a city with a
30-percent poverty rate, ringed by affluent suburbs.
Even though the speakers all conceded that violent crime
rates in Hartford have gone down, they argued for
"reorganizing" the scandal-ridden Hartford Police
Department.
No, they don't want to get rid of racist cops like Lt.
Stephen Miele, who was recently accused of ordering officers to
target people of color for arrest. This unholy trio wants
Hartford cops to implement "zero tolerance" campaigns of the
kind used in New York City, which especially criminalize young
people of color for everything from jaywalking to
littering.
The goal is not to make Hartford communities safer but to
whitewash its downtown business district.
By exposing the real goals of the new police chief and his
allies, Hartford activists sent a clear message that they are
ready to challenge plans to increase police repression,
violence and racism.
Reprinted from the Oct. 28, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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