NYPD labels people “professional agitators” for filming police

Madison Ruppert, Contributor
Activist Post

The New York Police Department apparently classifies individuals who choose to exercise their right to videotape police engaging in their public duties “professional agitators” as revealed by a poster inside the NYPD’s 30th Precinct.

While this is hardly surprising coming from a police department so woefully corrupt that an officer who actually attempted to do his job by exposing rampant, systematic corruption ended up being thrown in a psychiatric ward by his superiors, it is troubling nonetheless.

Let us not forget, the NYPD has also created a social media unit in order to conduct surveillance on various social media outlets, has been busted spying on innocent Muslims, using highly questionable tactics in order to arrest Occupy Wall Street activists and even been shown by a former narcotics detective to be fabricating drug charges to meet quotas.

If anything can be said about the New York Police Department with any degree of certainty, it is that they probably have a significant reason to fear being recorded in carrying out their often deplorable activities.

According to Christina Gonzalez Nysid, one of the two “professional agitators” depicted on the poster (which has a couple of egregious and hilariously elementary grammatical and spelling errors), she discovered it after walking in to the monthly 30th Precinct community board meeting.

The poster reads (in all capital letters):

Be aware that above suspects are known professional agitators that live at 445 West 153rd Street. Above subjects MO is that they video tape officers performing routine stops and post on YouTube. Subjects purpose is to portray officers in a negative way and too [sic] deter officers from conducting there [sic] responsibilities. Above subjects also deter officers from beings safe and tactical by causing unnecessary distraction. Do not feed into above subjects [sic] propaganda.

See the poster displayed inside of the precinct in the below short video.

One of the most laughable parts of this poster – aside from the glaring errors which most high school graduates would likely catch – is that the upper left hand corner appears to show the seal for the NYPD’s “Intelligence Division”.

Below the block of text we see that the point of contact appears to be a certain Sgt. Nicholson 30 Pct FIO with a cell phone number which is unfortunately quite hard to read due to the blurriness of the image. However, my best guess it that the number is (646) 210-9304.

Other points of contact, gathered from the 30th Precinct’s official website, could be either the main precinct’s phone number: (212) 690-8811 or community affairs: (212) 690-8837.

I highly encourage people to contact this precinct – especially if you live in the area – in order to make it clear that exercising one’s right to film police is in no way an act of “agitation” and that people who choose to make a habit of exercising this right are not “professional agitators.”

This type of attitude is what allows police around the country to think they have the right to brutally assault people for filming them, destroy evidence and conduct unlawful arrests.

We are supposed to be protected and served by the police, not intimidated and harassed for attempting to hold them accountable for their actions.

If we allow this type of attitude among police departments to flourish as it has, we can only expect more of the same.

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This article first appeared at End the Lie.

Madison Ruppert is the Editor and Owner-Operator of the alternative news and analysis database End The Lie and has no affiliation with any NGO, political party, economic school, or other organization/cause. He is available for podcast and radio interviews. Madison also now has his own radio show on Orion Talk Radio from 8 pm — 10 pm Pacific, which you can find HERE. If you have questions, comments, or corrections feel free to contact him at [email protected]