Prometheus 6

The New York Times has decided to report what they should have for quite a while. Bob Herbert has been talking about it for a while now.

The police, already fearing retaliatory violence, say the teenagers were exchanging gang signs, wearing T-shirts with a gang name and bounding atop cars when they were arrested. Parents and teachers of the group and witnesses said that they were no more boisterous than any group of teenagers would be in similar circumstances, and that they did not see any youths atop cars.

The charges are misdemeanors: unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct. No drugs or weapons were found, and there were no injuries to those arrested or to the police. The officers did not draw their guns. Yet this roundup of Brooklyn teenagers and young people has gotten widespread attention.

Interviews with those arrested, their parents, witnesses who did not know the teenagers, as well as accounts provided by the Police Department and the Brooklyn district attorney, provided contradictory versions of events. But they correspond in one aspect: The arrests were part of a police operation that unfolded with precision.

Undercover officers circled in unmarked cars; a police captain monitored the teenagers gathering; and blue-and-white vans and buses cut off Putnam Avenue in both directions at a key moment, trapping the teenagers less than a block into their journey.

“Once the kids hit Irving, the police came from everywhere,” said Lisa Guerrero, 52, who lives nearby and saw the group gather and head up the block. “I was like: ‘What happened? Why is this happening?’ ”

If you want to teach a whole generation to hate and fear the police, I can't think of a better approach. It's only unusual in the number of kids arrested at once.