From Bridgeport Generation Now:
The murder of George Floyd is making clear to white people what Black people have known for 400 years: as Co-Director Gemeem Davis said, “that our lives are under constant, violent assault. And in the United States, it’s legal.” Racism, abuse of power, and corruption of policing is the root cause of violence in our country. And here in Bridgeport, too.
We are in a state of emergency and it is the people who are demanding change!
We at Gen Now know that means policy change – we must move our police department from racist policies to anti-racist policies. And to hold those with power – our Mayor, City Council, and Police Chief – accountable to dismantling racism, abuse, and corruption within this incredibly harmful system!
We the people of Bridgeport are ready to work with the Mayor and City Council to:
— Reallocate money away from the police department and into education, housing, and other community needs
— Reform our Police Union contract to address unchecked power, fire abusive officers and hold others truly accountable
— Reform our Policy Handbook to have zero tolerance for excessive force and other violent behaviors
— Demilitarize our police department
— Remove police from our schools
— Establish Anti-Racism training for all of BPD
— Organize real community forums
— Reform the Citizen Complaint process
— Retire Chair Daniel Roach from the Police Commission and return the commission to a true civilian review board
Bring Back the Guardian Angels, Mayor!
Do candidates for the Police Department actually swear to “protect and serve”? Gen Now has provided a very good list of issues and concerns to be reviewed and likely changed to meet the protect and serve the public purpose. Reforms need to follow the function that the public calls for. Is a one time HEARING in the midst of COVID protocols and concerns about chokeholds going to distract the City from looking at the multiple functions attempted today or possible expanded functions with no actual “adoption of thorough going community policing”. And without valuing the current and recent funding levels for necessary staffing? What Police Department matters sit in the City Attorney Office today and what is their expense actual and pending? Guidepost Solutions, nearly $350,000 through 9 months and Shotspotter about $450,000 this year are real and actual burdens that do not let this community breathe easily. When will Ganim2 take off his mask in safety and share the stories behind how dollars get spent and what his priorities are for the public? Time will tell.
Remove police from our schools.
Let’s be realistic there are some dangerous people that will walk into our schools to hurt innocent children that are trying and that really want an education because of some percieved beef that they might have. The police are the buffer between an education and the possibility of death.
Establish Anti-Racism training for all of BPD
Really, you can’t really believe that anti-racism training will change the hearts and minds of racist cops. Tell me how hearing someone talk about racism makes a person less racist and if that was the case why hasn’t our pain of racism and our constant conversations about 450 years of racism changed the hearts and minds of racists.
These two examples are a much to simplistic approach to ending racism in this America and the only people that can stop racism is White people, because you started it and you have perpetrated it for over 400 years to your betterment and to our detriment.
Finally, let’s hold Black folks accountable for voting for a white ex-con that continues to hold his foot on the throats of Black people until it’s time for the next election. Let’s hold our elected leaders accountable who continue to vote for the best interest of the party rather than the best interest of the people that elected them. Until Black folks learn to control it’s own destiny then the stench of racism will continue permeate our very existence.
Amen, Brother Day. And when second chances are sought, especially when you come from behind bars, and granted as folks in Bridgeport mercifully decided, how about some showing of governance priorities, remorseful empathy that promotes real action, and Open, Accountable, Transparent and Honest governance that allows all of the people to breathe effectively? Time will tell.
Whatever people propose for police departments other than “new” training for whatever purposes will more than likely never happen or is even a good idea. Like removing police from schools. Great idea!!
Fucking Idiots!
Regarding Bridgeport- they can take their shit up with the NEW police chief when AJ leaves in a few weeks.
Cheers!!!!
“A bullet to the head has a much greater percentage likelihood of killing a person,” said Mark Anastasi, a veteran municipal attorney.
“The current rules of engagement permit choke hold only when deadly force is authorized would not have enabled its usage in the George Floyd situation,” Attorney Mark Anastasi told the council.
“If you eliminate choke holds or neck holds you are not eliminating the ability of the officer to use alternative means – of force,” Anastasi said, including firing a gun.
Problem number 1. A mindset to continue what we have been doing. Make them promise to be better in the future.
City Attorney Mark Anastasi.
He has sounded this way since I was on the council and will continue until he is removed from the city attorneys staff. Period.
Problem number 2. Mayor Joseph P Ganim.
He allows this to happen. He always has and always will. He does not sympathize will the protestors ouside of the Police HQ. He sympathizes will the police.
f you want to change Bridgeport, start at the top and work your way down.
The mayor allows Mark Anastasi to act as the 21st member of the City Council. He is not present at the meetings to provide well thought out guidance based on law, he is there to debate. And he is there to debate as a spokesman for the mayor. Read the quotes again and ask yourself are they there to inflame the emotions of the moment or are they there to provide guidance rooted in law and to help the City Council.
It could not be clearer.
Get rid of these two jokers and you will immediately see change.
Oust Hamilton Burger Now !!!
“Our men and women adhere to best practices (and) policies. However, there’s always room for improvement and we’re willing to improve,” Perez told the council committee. “This department’s a good department. We can build on this. We can do this together.”
Where is it written in the BPD’s best practices book to respond to a loud birthday party with 20+ police officers with 17 charged in a myriad of Police Dept. infractions?
Not to mention that it is now nearly three years later and all 17 officers have not even had their punishment handed out. Justice delayed is justice denied? In this case justice delayed is justice forgotten.
Everyone says that AJ is a good guy. Maybe he. But he is not a good Police Chief.
Problem number 3. AJ Perez. He’s got to go. And be replaced by someone outside of the city.
I have maintained that hiring from within is a good practice but he need someone new without all of the baggage that being a member of the BPD carries with it.
Bob, don’t forget the person who helped to give us the Police Chief and who has given Bridgeport all of these white out of town police officers who have no concern about the city except their paycheck every week and their pension, David Dunn the City’s Personnel Director.
Oh. My bad. Who is responsible for hiring all of these clowns from the suburbs?
Your good friend and mine David Dunn. I won’t blame all of the bad apples on him but he ate gets credit for enough of them. The suburban slime. They come into our city. Take their pay and OT and beat the hell out of our sons and daughters our neighbors and friends all in a day’s work. Is he dunn, you betcha!
Bob, everything starts with David Dunn because is the person who hires the testing company and it is the testing company who are responsible for seeing what bias they have and what is there background and exposure they have with blacks and other people of color. The testing company Dunn has been using the past few years has no background in giving exams that has the population and they diversity and the percentage of blacks and other people of color. The City is putting a gun in someone hands to serve and protect and we need testing that understand this candidate, has he every worked blacks and other people of color, does he know or have a relationship, have they every have a disagreement with them. This is just a thumbtack of questions that need to be address. Bob, one important thing that we can’t ever overlook, David Dunn has been in position as the “ACTING” Personnel Director for 12 YEARS and this a Civil Service tested position just the Police and Fire Chief and the exam is a nationwide search, why hasn’t Mayor Ganim and the City Council demand a nationwide search to hire the best candidate, “ACTING” Personnel Director for 12 YEARS, that’s a disgrace.
I won’t name names but it was not the current mayor.
I had a neighbor and he said to me that he was trying to become a cop but had something in his background. He asked me if I could help him get on the force. I told him I didn’t know how that worked. He said would talking to the mayor help. I said maybe. Next thing I know he’s been accepted.
Not good.
AJ…… IS a good guy. He is a good man and he was a good cop. He was also a good squad leader. A very compassionate man. The problem is that he is in over his head. As I’ve said in previous posts, Bridgeport needs a top cop in the order of a Kelly, Bratton, or someone who came up under that type of tutelage if the BPD is to become professional in a manner and direction in which it should. Of course that kind of leader would never be hired by the likes of a Ganim or Testa etc.
AJ’s association and friendship with Ganim (and Testa) taints him from day one. In any case as I stated yesterday, AJ will soon be gone and Ganim will get to pick another crony.
Cheers!!!!
Heed my message:
Until the Bridgeport Police Department Chief is completely safeguarded away from the puppeteers (Mayor and Council) that department will never change.
You need someone with no ties to the city or it’s political garbage. As long as Ganim and the Council Calls the shots, the Chief is useless. Can’t implement his own ideas or any ideas which are theorized across the country. Tie his hands behind his back, throw him in the deadliest waters of Bridgeport and demands him to swim to shore.
When you tie the head of a public safety office that way, the result trickles down to the patrol level. Supervisors make stupid unconscious decisions, officers get overworked and stressed by the political nonsense plus the daily dangers of the street and create so much room for error because they can’t work with a clear head. So the problems your seeing in Bridgeport, are not a direct result of “bad apples in the department”, it’s an indirect result of a too many bad apples on the council and the most rotten apple Ganim who has full control over the Chief.
AJ is no saint, he’s not a leader and he’s not a chief. He’s clueless. However, bring someone in that’s actually qualified from another part of society to assess and react with an unbiased eye. No favors to any current cops, no favors owed to any current politicians, and only the duty to serve their constituents to the best of their ability.
NOBODY ON THE CITY COUNCIL HAS A DEGREE IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE , so how do you know what’s best for the city? What research have you done? Give me a break. Bridgeport is revolving door of corruption as long as those puppeteers are in control.
I’m sorry Jo. You are giving way to much credit to the council. Less is more. Clueless and toothless. Leaderless. For the most part brainless. Definitely gutless. Just give them $9,000 and tell them how to vote.
The less is more council. And you have the PT City Attorney who is collecting a pension and a paycheck telling them what they can and cannot do. You cannot make this stuff up.
Here we go. I was just reading on the CT Post website that the School Building Committee voted on the new location for Bassick High School.
Are you ready for this?
We can’t tell you where it is and how much we’re going to pay
This is what happens when you combine BOE and the City Council. Less is more.
But to add salt to the wounds the counsel to the BOE is a member of the Board of Trustees of UB; the rumored location of the new school. He of course sees nothing wrong with that.
This tops anything I have seen. We will not tell you how much we are committing. We will not tell you where it is. It’s just trust me.
The people in Bridgeport should be up in arms.
For any sort of effective police reform — toward anti-racism and positive police-citizen interaction — to take place beyond paper and political banter, there must be extensive, continual policing (or peace-/order-maintaining activity, as it were) that is defined in terms of police-community interaction/co-operation. As we are hearing from around the country, and as we heard from Charles Ramsey; extensive police-community co-operative interaction is the primary, essential ingredient in preventing racially-influenced policing catastrophe (and inappropriate/fatal use of force by police, generally)…
The police must spend a lot of time in the neighborhoods getting to know the citizenry as the citizenry is given the opportunity to get know them — as fellow human beings, not objects to be feared/controlled — so that all involved are working/living without an added burden of fear or negative perception of each other.
Bridgeport was making good progress toward this social condition for a while, especially under Police Chiefs Thomas Sweeney and Bryan Norwood, and especially under Mayor John Fabrizi. But, unfortunately, Community Policing was undermined by G1 and ultimately by the Finch Administration after a resurgence, and now has been completely dismantled, as such, by G2…
And, as part of this public-safety renaissance, the larger Bridgeport community must be brought into contact and cooperation on social and public-safety levels to facilitate greater understanding and fellowship between neighborhoods/racial-ethnic groups, even as we seek to pursue similar contact and cooperation between Bridgeport and regional towns.
It’s all part of getting to know and appreciate each other as fellow human beings that are identical, as such, in all important ways, and have everything to gain by cultivating familiarity and cooperative friendship.
Perhaps the first big step in legislative pursuit of these objectives is to bring back the residency requirement for all public-safety/public health employees and officials. How can police officers really come to feel a social connection with the citizenry if they don’t live and raise their children among them?…
In the mean-time, the citywide block-watch concept, and neighborhood police-citizen walking patrols (with long-term neighborhood assignments), and neighborhood police substations, must be brought back — as well as the Citizen Police Academy, and regular, citywide, neighborhood-police dialogue/issue meetings…
Chokeholds?! If police officers were properly trained in martial-arts/benign restraint techniques, and de-escalation techniques, there wouldn’t be any need for such potentially-lethal tactics — especially where teams of officers are involved in single-person restraint…
Major improvements in training, and careful recruit-selection, regarding personality-evaluation criteria used in hiring decisions, must also be at the top of the list in re-standardizing police force development…
Really; not much NEW to be learned from the latest policing catastrophes. Nothing we haven’t known since before 1787… It’s all about electing proper leadership at all levels of government — and the American voter has been making increasingly poorer choices, overall (but not without exception) about selecting leadership, at all levels of government, for the past six decades… At the local and state levels, Bridgeport, and Connecticut are the political poster-children in this regard. Which is why we are New England’s socioeconomic “sick guy” — and getting sicker all the time…
But now, it looks as if a VIRUS and accompanying economic depression may have been inflicted upon us as an effective vehicle of change…
As JML would say: Time will tell….
Your paragraph on chokeholds is unrealistic and that type of training etc. etc. will never happen. Not everyone can master martial arts etc. If someone Is hoping for outcomes that are always good, you will have to wait for RoboCop to be invented and even then there will be incidences where people will protest outcomes. Remember back in the day? Height and other requirements for entry to police departments were in place. Now you can have a tiny cop or two battling a 6’ plus person and back in the day there was much less incidents where cops were attacked. As far as training is concerned people need to train themselves and their kids that you just don’t struggle with police. In case everybody’s forgotten, which many have, it is against the law to do that.
Cheers!
Gimme a break Rich Augustynowicz, we see all the time where cops don’t have the problem of choking or shooting white people with the frequency that Black people are choked and killed! Why are cops under control with white people, but seem lose ALL CONTROL when arresting Black’s? I’ve seen numerous videos of white people struggling with cops and they go to jail, yet Black people who struggle with cops go to the morgue.
So when you say, “people need to train themselves and their kids that you just don’t struggle with police,” what you really mean is that Black people need to train themselves and their kids that you just don’t struggle with police. Spoken like a true White Ex Cop. Blame the victims is the mantra of white cops all across America, right Rich Augustynowicz? Gimme a flucking break!
It’s clear that you can’t accept the fact that if you don’t comply with the law, sometimes bad things happen. I agree with you that there are many more incidents in the media of police confrontations with blacks but despite what you make think or say, the percentage of serious incidents between white people and cops are extremely higher than those with blacks. I worked in all black neighborhoods all my career, and lived in mixed neighborhoods for almost half my life but yeah yeah I know, you’ll say but I’m not black so you- Don, know better. It’s people like you that because of your color blindness and inability to rationalize the truth in many cases, that your comments fall on deaf ears. Many of those ears were never always deaf but people like you trained them to be that way. All of the studies published indicate that there is no racial bias by police in the instances where deadly force was used. Go and do your research Don. Your comments towards me are outrageous. So I will just attribute them to YOUR racism and ignorance.
Regarding the “training of kids”- I made a general statement. YOU elected to say the blacks needed to be trained. Why did you say such a thing?!!
Give ME a flucking break!!!
Rich, I’ll agree on your assessment of Day’s there’s a percentage of serious incidents between white people and cops are extremely higher than those with blacks. This side a man who has colored blind the blacks cops who use excessive force and stated blacks will never vote for a Puerto Rican. His racist tendency is on full display. but I will disagree with you it’s people like Day that and his color blindness and inability to rationalize the truth in many cases, that your comments fall on deaf ears. Have you seen the BLM protest going on? I will give Day a small caveat to the proportion of death by cops and have handed policing on blacks and other nonwhites than whites but not Latinos thought. I do have a question for Day. Since blacks will never vote for a Puerto Rican do Puerto Rican’s lives matter would the march and protest for them? JS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_m8npIh4eQ&feature=emb_logo&fbclid=IwAR18gBWqtTSNgknFRyeOkw58dAnulb2VeIiPryC2cfpAIROXhjU9qrOCapg
(This is a man who is colored blind on black.)
P.S I have seen Council member Cruz on TV talking about Columbus’s statue and petitioning to replace it with Danny DeVito. While I can only assume it was a slight to white people. He also wanted to put up a native Indian statue. Considering Native Indians practice slavery prior to Columbus and had black slaves themself who fought with the Confederacy to keep slavery and its practice. Like to hear your thoughts Councilman on Indians enslaving other Indians and black people. As well as fighting for the Confederacy to keep slavery in American. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEfajhXjZF0&fbclid=IwAR1SwElzEjYenN1wgJ99cUNFkaklWKbvl5lHJQPPpe5Ncutj5aF0xrRX8Wk
Rich Augustynowicz says:
June 20, 2020 at 6:40 am
As far as training is concerned people need to train themselves and their kids that you just don’t struggle with police.
Typical white cop response and not remembering what they say or do an hour and 21 minutes later. Speaking of RACISM & IGNORANCE, LOOK AT THE MAN IN THE MIRROR! FOOL! My comments to you are well deserved, so take them in the spirit that they were delivered!
Right back at YOU, fool. They say that a sign of stupidity is trying to have a conversation with someone who will never understand what you are saying. You are obviously either ignorant, stupid, or too racist to understand anything regarding these topics.
My guess is that you are all three but mostly just racist. I’m done with you.
As George Floyd’s brother said at his funeral, he even said ‘Sir, I can’t breathe. Sir, I can’t breathe.’
I guess the cop thought he wasn’t be sincere enough or being respectful enough. The cops are trained to ‘listen between the lines’.
Don, teach your children to be respectful to cops and nothing will happen to them……
Rich Augustynowicz, you don’t know a damn thing about me other than what your read on this forum. Because I don’t agree with your imbecilic opinion and beliefs then in somehow ignorant, stupid, or racist.
You’re attempting to make valid what are essentially naked raw statements of racism. This is easy stuff. This is very, very clear that it has racial animus here, and you’re trying to dismiss it as a difference of opinion. NOW YOU’RE DONE! FOOL!
Does anyone really know anyone? I will be nice and concede you are extremely racially biased as Tom White being white is. When it comes to that blue line brotherhood Rich is a member of, well, he saw a lot more than you and I. Like your comments here on OIB we can make assumptions of you, as well as that blue line. PS If this officer was white he would have been charged and fire on the spot. That is the colorblind people fail to see. And Rich the media (CNN) would have been all over it. JS https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-2183114/Video-Baltimore-police-officer-suspended-hitting-woman-camera.html?ito=facebook_share_article-video-lead&fbclid=IwAR1Bu331VFJY2KWrEDtgU5uk9m6Rh9tDfEYTqpmm8cDv25eTZR5hKnbxxak
Don, Rich said, “I worked in all black neighborhoods all my career, and lived in mixed neighborhoods for almost half my life,” so what does that mean? Your best friend is a white attorney and you guys socialize together and your families go to each others home. Don, Rich can’t be objective about the police because he was the police union President in Stamford and job was to protect all of his members no matter what, even if Mother Teresa was a witness against one of his members, no cop does anything wrong.
Don, then Rich said to you, “Go and do your research Don,” Rich has no research because of the social unrest and the problems with police the research is there, on July 27, 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson established the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (AKA the Kerner Commission), tasked with assessing the causes of widespread urban rioting at the time. President Johnson asked the 11-member commission, “What happened? Why did it happen? What can be done to prevent it from happening again?”
This came about soon after the infamous 12th Street Riots in Detroit, Michigan, which left more than 40 people dead and 1000 injured.
The report, issued on February 29 of the next year, blamed the more than 150 riots between 1965 and 1968 on “white racism” instead of African-American political groups like some believed. Specifically, it identified confrontations between predominately white police forces and the predominately African-American communities they served. It also cautioned against radical responses by the black community, such as the policy of separatism advocated by some.
It concluded that “our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white – separate and unequal” and called for “programs on a scale equal to the dimension of the problems” in response. The authors recommended nation-wide changes to policies that could increase aid to African American communities in order to halt further racial violence and polarization, especially in employment, education, welfare and housing.
Rich doesn’t know the history of police, the first police officers in America were the “slave catchers” they were people who returned escaped slaves to their owners in the United States. These Southern law enforcement groups were created out of a need to maintain order among slaves and slave owners, rather than to protect the interests of the common, non-slaveholding people. Many states allowed local law enforcement to enlist the help of federal marshals, U.S. commissioners, and other local citizens. This spread to more states with the ratification of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which required all citizens and local law enforcement to aid in the capture of runaway slaves. This meant that Northerners and abolitionists were forced to comply with slave hunters. In the Southern states, any person could capture an escaped slave and turn them over to law enforcement to receive compensation, and slaveowners could also put out advertisements promising a reward for anyone who captured their slaves. Slaveowners also hired people who made a living catching fugitive slaves. Since these slave catchers charged by the day and mile, many of them would travel long distances to hunt for fugitives. Slave catchers often used tracking dogs to sniff out their targets; these were called “negro dogs,” and, though they could be of multiple breeds, they were typically bloodhounds.
Ron, you know I know Rich even though I wasn’t aware of his background as a police union president. That explains a lot now that I know, I just thought he was a DAMN FOOL, with his tomfoolery about, “studies published indicate that there is no racial bias by police in the instances where deadly force was used.” My intuition has never let me down. You know like, when you know, but you don’t know why you know, you just know! Ron, I guess he thought that I couldn’t hear his Dog Whistle even though he was blowing ever so lightly.
Don, I told Rich on another topic that I understood (DFR) the Duty of Fair Representation by the union that’s entitle to all members but I said that when I was on the fire union executive board and when a member who was totally out of line that we would read out that member out and let him know how he is hurting the whole because his weakness but we would represent that member, there wasn’t going to be a free ride.
Don, one of the biggest decision that we made was when you, myself and 46 other Firebird Society members sued the fire union, the fire department and the city to drop out of the union because how are union dues were being used to fight other black firefighters around the country in hiring and promotion and that we had no vote on how our dues were being used and the union had taken our money and it because a free interest free load to the union. As you know we won our case and the city had to return to us $45,000 plus the union had to represent us the same as any other union member but we didn’t have to pay any union dues. Our local, state and national union refuse to speak out against racism and discrimination. We held a press conference at our office on Jan. 15, 2001 on Martin Luther King Jr. birthday.
Why didn’t George Floyd just do what’s the cops asked him to do upon initial face to face encounter? He would be alive today if he did. Seattle wouldn’t have its own country and two good cops would be patrolling there shifts today in Atlanta .Just asking.
Why didn’t the police give Eric Garner a summons for selling single cigarettes from a packs without tax stamp instead of choking him to death, in fact the cops could have done the same thing to George Floyd, oh by the way the cops didn’t him why they were arresting him. Barry, give m a few whites who have been killed by black police officers?
barry soitera, what the hell are you talking about. George Floyd was absolutely compliant and was lynched by the knee of a white cop with handcuffs on behind his back. See that’s the problem, white cops kill black men when they resist and when they comply. That’s why BLACK LIVES MATTER! Any questions?
Don, here’s another problem with police, where the hell are those black cops who are killing white men like white cops have been doing, it’s obvious that the blacks cops are not performing their duties.
Connecticut needs to be a “open carry” where you can openly carry a firearm in public.
Day, Ron I am far from a historian, but if you do some minor research you will find out blacks enslaved other blacks in Africa, particularly women. The history of slavery crosses ever race of people on this planet. I have no problem with you presenting what you want to project on the wall of Plato’s cave. But there are many other people’s projections on that wall of this debate. That being said, I read an article on Columbus’s statue and its history in CTpost. Councilwoman Aidee Nieves, you want to have a conversation on the subject. As I said I am far from a historian so my conversation comes from common sense. Call it a discovery or even not the first person to step on the land of the New World, but Columbus was credited for it. His history is far from a saint unlike the Irish people how used to celebrate their heritage. You know those white people whose homeland was ravaged, to more than 1/2 of its population by England, killing the men and enslaving the woman, I mean “indenture servants” not sure what the women were “indenture” to do. That projection on Plato’s cave wall is kind of out of focus. However, my point is history is what it is history. In fact because of the history of Columbus, you can’t condemn the act but celebrate the results without seemingly being hypocrisy. Meaning the Puerto Rican Day celebration is a direct result of Columbus, As well as the 4th of July, Canada Day, Cinco de Mayo, or any other Spanish speaking nation pride day in South America.
To council member Cruz everybody has pride for themselves and their nationality. The Italians are no different. You wave the Puerto Rican Flag on Puerto Rican Day with pride. Just remember that pride is the direct result of Columbus sailing across to the New World. But particularly the Spanish Crown. There’s a reason you speak a form of Spanish and most all of South Ameria and not Italian.
Councilman, I am not defending Columbus to honor Italian heritage, a man who abuse woman and children. Considering Italy wasn’t a country when Columbus landed on now Puerto Rico, and when the holiday was enacted Itlay was a fascist country that fought with Hitler against America. So while you wait to have a conversation with Italian leaders like Caruso the last time I checked he abandoned the city and moved the Columbus celebration day parade out of the city. JS.
As for me, a Port resident, who was deprived of the celebration when Christ made the decision to move out of the city, I am of mixed race with some Italian heritage which makes me a mutt, but I view myself as an American. I found your petition to change the statue of Columbus to Danny DeVito insulting. Not only to Italians but mostly to people who are less attractive and desirable. There were far more honorable Italians than an actor, Even so, if I was to pick an actor I would have picked Marlon Brando. He was a voice for Indian injustice. As an American, I found you pice an unjust attack on people in your pursuit of justice. JS people BAM!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTo8ooEY2uA
Councilman Cruz being a fair-minded person. You can’t change history and you can’t condemn the act yet celebration the results without it being an unjust verdict. Meaning, Puerto Rican Day and its heritage are direct results of Columbus. So are you willing to change both the act (Columbus Day) and the results of the act (Puerto Rican Day)? Change Columbus Day to Italian Heritage Day (take the statue down) and change Puerto Rican Day to Taíno Heritage Day? but while you are at it you condemn the Indians’ slavery and for fighting for the racist Confederacy. Hell, you would have to condemn the Bible, God, denounce the Catholic church, and remove all the statues related to the church. That is fair and just. You and your people are looking for fairness and justice, right?
P.S Brando is a better actor pick for a replacement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X0raB9j58s
I agree with some of these demands. My daughters camped out with this group in front of the PD. They had a good conversation with some of them. They told me Ernie came out there to support them.