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This Is What Policing Is All About

The NYPD attacks on people having fun in a public space are a reminder of the core function of police: violent social control.

Jack Mirkinson's avatar
Jack Mirkinson
Jun 07, 2021

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Joshua Potash

Hopefully you had a good weekend. Here in New York, it was blazing hot and the city was sparking and there was that ineffable NYC summer vibe in the air (something I used to consider a bit of a trial thanks to the aforementioned blazing heat, but the events of the past year changed my view). It was nice, is what I'm getting at, and millions of people spent the weekend doing nice things.

The New York Police Department spent it violently rounding up people in Washington Square Park. I guess that counts as a nice weekend for cops. The reason this happened is simple: some rich people complained that things were getting too rowdy in the park—which, lest we forget is an iconic public space surrounded by a university campus in the densest urban area in America, not a private space in the middle of nowhere —and so the NYPD decided that people had to leave the park by 10 p.m., and then decided to brutally enforce that curfew.

Twitter avatar for @AshAgony
Ash J @AshAgony
NYPD cops (including the notoriously violent Strategic Response Group aka SRG) violently cleared Washington Square Park earlier tonite. Multiple violent arrests inside the park. Cops followed & chased people until they were multiple blocks away from the park.
3:30 AM ∙ Jun 6, 2021
6,013Likes2,223Retweets
Twitter avatar for @JoshuaPotash
Read Becoming Abolitionists by Derecka Purnell @JoshuaPotash
The NYPD has now moved into the village for no clear reason.
3:08 AM ∙ Jun 6, 2021
3,039Likes609Retweets
Twitter avatar for @NelStamp
Nelini Stamp 🐺🐜 @NelStamp
If I am correct that is no longer inside Washington Square Park so why is the NYPD straight up chasing and following folks? Does the mayor hate Washington Sq Park?
12:33 PM ∙ Jun 6, 2021
291Likes82Retweets
Twitter avatar for @isabelle_leyva
Isabelle Leyva @isabelle_leyva
Army of cops chasing protesters (and random citizens) through the streets. I was told that I would be arrested if I continued to follow the police line. I am an identified protest monitor
3:08 AM ∙ Jun 6, 2021
637Likes252Retweets
Twitter avatar for @AshAgony
Ash J @AshAgony
It didn’t take long for the army of NYPD cops to then start clearing the park. Cops played a PSA (via LRAD) declaring people in the park to be an “unlawful assembly.” Cops on bikes came, formed a line, & began shoving people with their bikes. Behind them were cops with batons.
7:51 PM ∙ Jun 6, 2021
326Likes59Retweets

It would be hard to find a more illustrative confirmation of the thesis that the police exist primarily to maintain social control on behalf of the rich. There is no high-minded reasoning behind the police decision to turn Washington Square Park into a war zone every weekend, but that is because, in a police state, there doesn't need to be. The reminder that the cops are in charge, and that they act with impunity, is reason enough.

There was enough of a backlash to the scenes on Saturday night that the cops backed off on Sunday. It was a lousy short-term look; even complete freaks like mayoral candidate and former cop Eric Adams, whose policy on just about everything is "maybe we should put a cop there" and who has flirted with the idea of carrying a gun as mayor, felt the need to distance themselves.

But on Monday, Bill de Blasio, as he usually does, backed the cops to the hilt:

Twitter avatar for @emmagf
Emma G. Fitzsimmons @emmagf
Mayor Bill de Blasio says he agrees with the decision to close Washington Square Park at night and says the police have to take a "proactive" approach in some cases. He defends the police response and says "New Yorkers want a peaceful summer."
3:24 PM ∙ Jun 7, 2021
30Likes9Retweets

And the local media has been more than willing to carry the can for the NYPD. "NYPD cracks down on rowdy groups in Washington Square Park" is how NY1 framed its story. CBS2 didn't wonder why the curfew was in place—just why it wasn't being enforced consistently:

There is confusion over a new curfew at Washington Square Park.

Police have stepped up security after violent clashes Saturday night when the park was closing. But as CBS2’s Cory James reported, the curfew didn’t appear to be in effect on Sunday night.

The curfew was put in place a week ago, so what happened?

Yeah, what happened! Get in there cops! It's wild that the NYPD even bothers to have a social media account when the press is this willing to do the job.

It is no surprise that the landscape favors the cops so much. The uprisings of 2020 have given way to the most instinctive of establishment narratives about New York City: that it is a crime-riddled hellhole that deserves to be dealt with. Crime is at the top of every mayoral debate, and that laser focus has now seeped into the public consciousness:

Twitter avatar for @NYGovRace
Governor's Race 2022 @NYGovRace
In @NY1 survey "crime or violence" rose to the #1 issue, with 3.5x as many likely voters wanting more police than less (72 to 20). Adams vs Yang had a 15 point shift to Adams for top rank between the two leaders. Police seemingly more popular with Likely Voters than on Twitter.
12:25 PM ∙ Jun 7, 2021
43Likes11Retweets

(Sidenote: "wow, over a century of police propaganda wasn't immediately washed away by a radical movement most people only heard of last year" is not the burn this person thinks it is.)

We know, though, that police don't actually focus on solving serious crime, the kind that gets people asking for more cops:

Twitter avatar for @lauraolin
laura olin @lauraolin
NYPD detectives and officers solved only 26.3% of all serious crimes in the second quarter of last year, including murders, rapes, robberies, assaults, burglaries and thefts.
Twitter avatar for @JoshuaPotash
Read Becoming Abolitionists by Derecka Purnell @JoshuaPotash
The NYPD has now moved into the village for no clear reason. https://t.co/7m1aEYfJsU
2:34 PM ∙ Jun 6, 2021
402Likes147Retweets

They don't focus on it because solving serious crime is really a loss leader for the true function of policing , which is to uphold the social order on behalf of the most powerful people in the world, and to use whatever means necessary to do so. That is the thing to remember when you look at these videos. You might say something like "this isn't what police should be doing!" That's true, in a sense, but that misses the point. Doing this is what policing is all about.


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