Each year, the Caribbean community in New York City celebrates “J’Ouvert,” a cultural festival of food, dancing and fun. Unfortunately, fatal shootings have marred J’Ouvert the last several years—and that gave the NYPD the excuse it craved to treat partiers like passengers. One outraged article described the cops’ abuse and warrantless searches of attendees under the headline, “NYPD Security Grip On J’Ouvert 2017 As Tight As A TSA Patdown”–
Was it Brooklyn, NY or the airport? It was hard to tell as the NYPD yesterday kept a vice like grip on the 2017 J’Ouvert celebrations, ramping up its security with wands, searches and confiscation of alcohol. There was also a ‘no music’ sign along the route. … Here are some of the scenes from the NYPD stepped up security measures that J’Ouvert revelers had to grin and bear Monday morning.
Click for pictures if you can bear to watch your fellow citizens spread-eagled while cops harass them merely for enjoying themselves. Also, catch the disgust on many of the victims’ faces.
Our infuriated reporter continues, “It was almost as if [J’Ouvert revelers] were going through a TSA security check point – except it was right in their neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY.”
Intriguingly, it looks as though the municipal government not only “permits” [sic for “extorts money from the organizers for allowing them to exercise their natural right of association”] but sponsors this event. Which begs many questions, such as “Why are politicians squandering our taxes on J’Ouvert?” (rhetorical, as we all know why: pandering to Caribbean Americans for votes) and “Why aren’t private organizers running J’Ouvert? They would guard their affair so that it’s safe and welcoming. Instead, incompetent bureaucrats have failed to eliminate violence despite increasing numbers of cops who pester and intimidate peaceful partiers.”
So long as we refuse to defy the TSA at airports, the anti-Constitutional searches it debuted will continue spreading. And one day, as New Yorkers in particular and Americans in general remain silent about such egregious evisceration of the Fourth Amendment, the horror will reach from black neighborhoods into white ones.
4:36 pm on September 5, 2017
