There’s been good and bad news this week relating to police and justice and harassment in public spaces in New York City:
The bad first –
“On Monday, May 5, Occupy Wall Street protester Cecily McMillan was found guilty of assaulting NYPD Officer Grantley Bovell at the OWS anniversary protest on March 17, 2012. She now faces two to seven years in prison, with the possibility of probation.
Her conviction was a terrible miscarriage of justice. Abundant evidence of McMillan’s abuse at the hands of police—photos of bruises on her breast and arms, testimony that she suffered a seizure once handcuffed—were questioned in the spirit of what we’ve come to call rape culture: maybe, the prosecutor suggested, she faked it. Maybe she inflicted the bruises herself. Reports of NYPD misconduct during the Occupy protests were deemed inadmissible as evidence in court, as were the more violent parts of Officer Bovell’s record. In the absence of substantive background, the jurors came to their verdict based on a grainy video.
Upon hearing the terms of sentencing—which were, somehow, unknown to members of the jury—Charles Woodward (Juror #2) wrote a letter on behalf of nine of the twelve jurors asking Judge Zweibel for leniency in sentencing. They expressed remorse. One anonymous juror told Jon Swaine of The Guardian, “Most just wanted her to do probation, maybe some community service. But now what I’m hearing is seven years in jail? That’s ludicrous. Even a year in jail is ridiculous.”
You can sign a Change.org petition calling for a pardon.
Now the good, via USA Today:
“The New York Police Department will no longer confiscate unused condoms as evidence of prostitution by people suspected of being sex industry workers, abolishing a practice criticized by civil rights groups for undermining efforts to combat AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday.
Advocates for sex workers and civil rights groups had long pushed for the policy change, noting that the city spends more than $1 million every year to distribute free condoms.
For decades, police in New York and elsewhere had confiscated condoms from sex work suspects ostensibly for them to be used as evidence in criminal trials, even though the overwhelming majority of prostitution cases never go to trial.”
