REMARKS
Council Member De La Rosa's personal experiences and response to previous comments
1:10:52
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148 sec
Council Member Carmen N. De La Rosa addresses previous comments about her constituents and shares her personal experiences with policing in her community. She emphasizes the disparities in how different communities are policed and the impact on Black and brown New Yorkers.
- De La Rosa expresses strong support for the Feliz family, who lost a loved one
- She shares her experiences of being stopped by police in her own neighborhood
- De La Rosa highlights the rising numbers of unconstitutional stops of Black and brown New Yorkers
Carmen N. De La Rosa
1:10:52
First of all, let me say that Sammy Feliz and Alan Feliz were my constituents, and I will be damned in this body if I have members of this body question this family that has lost their son, their father, their brother.
1:11:13
Do not speak to me because I am not speaking to you.
Vickie Paladino
1:11:15
You left for your face down.
Carmen N. De La Rosa
1:11:17
Because I'm looking at you because you know what you said.
1:11:20
So let me just say that my condolences goes out to this family who is seeking justice.
1:11:27
All of us leave our house in the morning trying to get back home at night.
1:11:31
All of us deserve safety.
1:11:33
But what I do know is that the men in my community in Washington Heights, Inwood, and Northern Manhattan have been on the crosshairs on the war of drugs my entire life.
1:11:43
And I do not need to go on a ride along to know what happens on the streets of my neighborhood because I walk the streets of my neighborhood every single day and I've been stopped.
1:11:54
For standing in front of my building, I've been stopped.
1:11:57
So, therefore, I do not need having a ride along does not make you an expert in how policing happens.
1:12:05
And there are 2 very, very opposing tales to that story.
1:12:10
So I will put that there for the record.
1:12:12
And the other thing too is I'm an immigrant and I'm a proud immigrant and I'm the 1st Dominican woman elected to this body from my community.
1:12:20
So do not question, okay, the contributions of immigrants in this chamber.
1:12:26
With that being said, I want to say that one of the things that we are guided by in this conversation is data.
1:12:34
Data that is publicly available and rare, because it is not always publicly available.
1:12:39
But, what we do see in the data that is available is a glimpse in a system that is not working and that has not been working.
1:12:46
A system that treats my children differently than it treats children of people on this dais.
1:12:51
Period.
1:12:52
Black and brown New Yorkers being stopped, questioned and frisked unconstitutionally.
1:12:59
And, those numbers are on the rise under this administration.
1:13:03
So, what I hope to get out of this hearing, since the circus has begun is to make sure that we are able to ask the questions that pertain to why the system is working inequitably in communities like mine.
