PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Tatiana Hill, Senior Organizer from Office of the Community Liaison
3:13:21
·
156 sec
Tatiana Hill, Senior Organizer from the Office of the Community Liaison, testified about their public education efforts regarding NYPD's Stop and Frisk practices. She emphasized the importance of informing communities most impacted by these practices about their rights and the law.
- Hill described conducting info sessions in heavily policed neighborhoods like Bed Stuy, Brownsville, and Crown Heights.
- The office collects feedback from community members to report to Judge Annalisa Torres, who oversees the stop and frisk lawsuit.
- They collaborate with elected officials and attend NYPD community council meetings to gather diverse perspectives on policing.
Tatiana Hill
3:13:21
Hi.
3:13:22
Good afternoon.
3:13:22
I'm Tatiana Hill.
3:13:24
I'm the senior organizer, and I, primarily organize in Brooklyn, New York for our office.
3:13:29
So I'm gonna talk more about, our public education where Jermaine left off.
3:13:34
So the info sessions, we basically go to communities that are most impacted by NYPD Stop and First based on the data on NYPD's website.
3:13:42
That data proves that many of these neighborhoods are police at a higher rate than others, and therefore, they are the ones we want to interact with to find their feedback on police interactions.
3:13:52
Those may be, encounters as well as stops, which was talked about earlier.
3:13:57
The public education is really necessary.
3:13:59
We find that
Michael Gerber
3:14:00
a
Tatiana Hill
3:14:01
lot of people in our communities don't know the laws, the policy and procedure of NYPD.
3:14:05
So they're not able to name if their rights are being violated during these stops, and therefore, they're not able to give feedback to us or other agencies such as CCRB.
3:14:15
So when we do these info sessions, it changes the dynamic a lot in the neighborhoods and communities that we work with because now people understand where their rights have been violated legally, not just in the sense of how they feel in that moment, but according to the law and the constitution.
3:14:29
So once we educate these groups, we now are able to collect feedback, and that is the largest part of our work.
3:14:34
Our office reports directly to this the judge mentioned, honorable Annalisa Torres, and she is overseeing this whole lawsuit for stop and frisk.
3:14:43
So she's able to implement changes currently as well as in the future in the larger process of reform.
3:14:49
So it's really important that people who are most impacted by policing are able to give their feedback on what they would like to see change in this policing system.
3:14:58
I primarily work in neighborhoods such as Bed Stuy, Brook, Brownsville, Crown Heights, Flatbush, Canarsie, Bushwick, Fort Greene in East New York.
3:15:06
We do know that these neighborhoods are more heavily policed than others because of the data NYPD provided.
3:15:12
We attend events, that elected officials have as well as collaborate with them to educate their constituents.
3:15:17
We want to do more of those with your, staff as well and other city council members.
3:15:23
We also have, attended NYPD events such as, community council meetings.
3:15:28
So we do hear both sides of the stories on how people see police and view them and what they would like to see change.
3:15:34
Our feedback is collected from all neighborhoods, all people, and all, views on policing.
3:15:39
But we do know that more neighborhoods are impacted more negatively than others, and we speak on that, throughout our work in our reports.
3:15:46
I'll now pass it off to my colleague, Maricia.
3:15:49
And I'll close and just say that we're also working on feedback sessions where people specifically can
Carmen N. De La Rosa
3:15:54
talk about their feedback
Tatiana Hill
3:15:54
after we've done these info sessions for the last year and a half.
3:15:57
Thank
