For 15 years, voters suffered through Christine Quinn's self-interested dealings as she hitched her political wagon to Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Speaker Quinn's close working relationship with Mayor Bloomberg is turning off voters from supporting her mayoral campaign. Now that Speaker Quinn is desperate to rescue her political future, she is about to throw Mayor Bloomberg and his legacy under the bus. Her efforts to divorce herself from Mayor Bloomberg may be too little, too late.
Christine Quinn Watered Down Rudy Giuliani's Abner Louima NYPD Police Brutality Task Force Recommendations.
Quinn Then Went On To Enable NYPD Culture Of Racism And Brutality.
Before the evening of August 9, 1997, was out, NYPD police officers had brutalized and tortured Abner Louima inside a police station house in Brooklyn.
After the tremendous public outcry, then Mayor Rudy Giuliani appointed a police brutality task force, and among the task force members he named was Christine Quinn. She was one of the driving forces to weaken the task force's recommendations, and eventually her efforts lead to a split among the task force members.
The weaker recommendations, which Quinn championed, went on to be represented in a majority report of the task force, while a set of more aggressive recommendations were formulated in a minority report. Read this excerpt from a report published by The New York Daily News :
Norman Siegel, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union and a task-force member, spearheaded a dissenting report that made a connection between race and police misconduct. "On issues like police brutality and race, you never compromise," Siegel said. But Quinn said her strategy was to make it easier for Mayor Giuliani who called some of the report's recommendations unrealistic to adopt reforms quickly in the wake of the sodomy and torture of Abner Louima, allegedly by police. (NYDailyNews * Saturday, February 20, 1999, 12:00 AM)
On the anniversary of Mr. Louima's torture and brutality, let us not forget who Speaker Quinn sides with.
Christine Quinn Supports Ray Kelly. Does She Endorse Police Brutality ?
A new video posted on YouTube shows New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn heaping praise on NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, even though the NYPD has had a record of racism and brutality under Commissioner Kelly. The new YouTube video shows six real examples of how law enforcement officers have a pattern of using excessive force.
Links to examples of excessive force used by NYPD and by peace officers :
Chapter 7 of Roots of Betrayal : The Ethics of Christine Quinn, which is being serialized this summer, addresses the NYPD’s history of violating the civil rights and civil liberties of activists. The conversation around reforming the NYPD needs to be enlarged to also address the police department’s persistent violations of civil rights and civil liberties. A task force should be empaneled with subpoena power and charged with investigating and issuing binding recommendations to finally overhaul the NYPD.
New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Bill Thompson’s restrained approach to ending stop-and-frisk policing has paid dividends with the endorsement from a coalition of city law-enforcement unions, the NYTimes writes. (via City & State First Read)
From the NYTimes :
Jumaane D. Williams, a city councilman from Brooklyn who has sponsored legislation against stop-and-frisk tactics, bluntly suggested that Mr. Thompson was taking the allegiance of black voters for granted.
“I think he believes that the color of his skin is what’s needed to get to communities of color, rather than standing on the correct substance of issues,” he said.
At tremendous political peril to Christine Quinn, the leader of the NAACP plans to make ''stop-and-frisk'' a major mayoral campaign issue.
New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has been so close and chummy with Mayor Michael Bloomberg's and NYPD Commish Ray Kelly's unconstitutional and racist policy of ''stop-and-frisk.'' She has been waging a neoliberal campaign that is hard on crime by being harder on people of color.
But now comes NAACP President Benjamin Jealous, who is sick and tired of the racial profiling that underpins the entire ''stop-and-frisk'' program, The New York Post reported.
Mr. Jealous "trashed" the stop-and-frisk program during remarks he made at Nazarene Congregational Church in Brooklyn yesterday, and Mr. Jealous's comments were seen as criticism of Mayor Bloomberg's and Police Commissioner Kelly's ill-conceived support for the use of stop-and-frisk. Indeed, Mr. Jealous portrayed Mayor Bloomberg and Commish Kelly as "villains."
“We intend to ensure through every legal means that stop-and-frisk becomes a thing of the past with the next mayor of this town,” Mr. Jealous said.
Three of the four major Democratic candidates — Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and former city Comptroller Bill Thompson — have all said the practice should be reformed but not scrapped. Quinn has yet to take a position on a package of bills before the Council to scale back the program.
City Comptroller John Liu wants to abolish stop-and-frisk altogether.
Jealous also said he wants the next mayor to get rid of Kelly, who consistently polls higher among Democrats than any elected official.
Quinn has signaled she would keep Kelly on board if she won the race and Kelly was willing to stay.
Her competitors in the primary have not made the same commitment.
New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, an undeclared candidate for mayor, was booed at the Rev. Al Sharpton's Martin Luther King Jr. forum, after she had suggested that Police Commissioner Ray Kelly should stay on as mayor, reported the news Web site DNAinfo.
More and more, people are standing up and speaking out against Christine Quinn. We each have our own reasons. But the more that we find the courage to stand up, the more that other people will join us, until our individual voices become a rising chorus. We demand reforms, and we won't accept anything less.
The Man Pulling The Levers, Turning The Knobs, And Flipping The Switches Behind The Curtain
Josh Isay is New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's campaign spokesman. Mr. Isay is a major political consultant in New York and Albany, with an outlet in Washington. He is one of Sen. Charles Schumer's main political consultants and advisors. So, when we wonder : why is it that no matter who gets elected, nothing seems to change, it is because the paid political consultants are the ones who keep pushing politicians into certain agendas that make them "electable." Who is advising Speaker Quinn to make these backroom deals, to keep NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, in spite of the fact that we need a federal commission to investigate the NYPD ?
When all of us keep working to demand reforms from government, who are the people behind the scenes, who are saying, "No." We only see Christine Quinn, but do we ever know to take a look at who is Josh Isay. Josh Isay worked for Bill Rudin. When the community kept demanding a full-service hospital to replace St. Vincent's, Josh Isay was advising Christine Quinn that it was O.K. to make the community of the Lower West Side of Manhattan into paws in their game to help Josh Isay's other clients, the Rudin Family. And when we wonder what happened to Speaker Quinn's former progressive roots, all you have to do is to look at her political advisors. If you vote for Speaker Quinn, because you are under the impression that you are going to get the "old" Christine Quinn of 13 or 14 years ago, then I invite you to please take a look at who decides what Speaker Quinn is allowed to do.
''Christine Quinn is a great example of why we shouldn't just blindly vote for someone just because they are LGBT,'' wrote KT.
''Quinn has been saying for more than a year now that the next mayor should ask Kelly to stay on. Apparently, Christine is a big fan of Stop and Frisk,'' wrote band.
''This all reminds me of the ending of The Devil Wears Prada,'' wrote Joe.My.God.
The tone of the blog post and the comments was very critical of Speaker Quinn for making backroom deals, for supporting Commissioner Kelly, and for supporting stop-and-frisk.
Únase a nosotros para marchar y exigir que el Concejo Municipal reduce los recursos proporcionados a la policÃa de Nueva York que permite a la policÃa para continuar con su práctica inconstitucional de "parar y revisar" a personas inocentes.
Traiga pitos. Nos reuniremos en la calle 74 y la Avenida Roosevelt. Entonces, nos marcharemos a lo largo de la avenida Roosevelt. Y soplamos nuestros pitos contra la programa de "parar y revisar."
