During grad school I was literally picked up off the street in Harlem by plain clothed police officers who didn't show me a badge, put me in the back of unmarked van, parked in a single spot for like an hour as I sat in van. Thought I had been kid napped. They been doing this.

an hour later they came and started putting other people in the van. a lot of them were regular targets. one told me the officers wrongfully forced their way into their apartment & dragged them out because they said they heard they had drugs. heard the officers planning this.

They were literally trying to make an arrest quota. There are reports and studies that showed nypd was given quotas for arrest during stop and frisk. they would arrest folks even without reason bc they knew they could and it didn’t matter long as they logged an arrest.

They left us all in the van alone as they continued to wrangle people like horses. Folks had mental health issues (mostly bc of long-term racism). One got in my face & yelled at me “how are you soo caaaalm?” I said I wasn’t, but didn’t know how else to act. PTSD from cops is real

I remember sitting in the van and asking (through the little opening when I was still inside alone) “can you show me a badge or something? how do I know you aren’t kidnapping me” officers just laughed. Literal fucking terrorists.

Oh, and because I couldn’t afford a lawyer, I had a court appointed attorney who suggested I just keep coming back to court until they dropped the “charges” bc that was my best bet. went to court for months. And this was like 1 of 5 situations I had with NYPD in grad school.

And they were particularly aggressive around Columbia because *gentrification* and I was friends with a lot of Black/brown dudes born in the neighborhood who had the same experiences and some worse (some of them still shocked at how frequent/terrible mine were, though lol)

And the reality is that, I had multiple really terrible experiences (including arrests and such) under NYPD stop and frisk policy, but the ONLY reason I spent time in/with the system but didn’t get trapped in it is because of my proximity to privilege as a grad student/person.

there is no way I would have been able to continue to make court scheduled appointments any time they decided to schedule them if I wasn’t in grad school with a somewhat flexible schedule (although I was working different gigs). This was not most folks reality I was in court with

I also want to be clear that there is *nothing* exceptional about me having been a grad student that separates me from any other Black person who is treated unfairly and like shit by law enforcement and the overall system.

I’m really sorry for the woman who was snatched off the street and put into an unmarked van by the NYPD. and the many others who have suffered a same fate over the years, but (like me) with no documentation aside from the NYPD arrest record. I hope she gets some restitution.