NEW YORK NY June 09, 2007 —The arrest last month in Bushwick of 32 teenagers on their way to a wake for Donnell McFarland, an 18 year-old, continues to touch a raw nerve in that community. The police contend the kids were disorderly on their way to mourn a murdered gang leader and their arrest was necessary to head of potential violence. The kids, their parents and teachers say the incident underscores just how out of touch the police are with the neighborhood’s teenagers. WNYC’s Bob Hennelly reports.

REPORTER: This week close to 400 people packed a Bushwick church basement. They were there to protest the way the 83rd precinct handled the kids on the way to the wake of Donnell McFarland. These arrests have become a rallying point to raise broader issues about alleged racial profiling and police brutality. At the rally, organized in large part by the teens themselves, the top demand was to have the disorderly persons charges from the day of the wake dropped. Councilman Charles Baron. Track

BARRON: Brothers and sisters we need to take this energy and down to DA Hynes office and tell him drop the charges and charge the police, drop the charges charge the police, drop the charges charge the police………

REPORTER: The police and District Attorney Ed Hynes maintain the teens walked on parked cars and were disruptive.

Donna Seabury is a parent and says she was just yards behind the group of the teens which included her 16 year old daughter. She says the cops were abusive.

SEABURY: If I thought my daughter was wrong I personally would have pulled her to the side, you know calm down or whatever the case may be, she was no way in the world out of control. I know a lot these children from the neighborhood. If these children were out of control I wouldn’t have walked with them.

REPORTER: Rest In Peace tee shirts with Donnell McFarland’s picture on it which police saw as proof of gang sympathies. Just who the 18 year-old McFarland was in life is central to the story and the alienation that has followed. The police say he led a subset of the Bloods and had an extensive juvenile record and one adult arrest for an assault. 19 year old Asher Callendar knew McFarland and was arrested on the way to the wake. He says the police are wrong about his friend and his peers.

CALLENDAR: He was never into any of that kind of stuff . Definitively not a leader of any gang, as the media is portraying him as a reputed Blood member. That’s what every newspaper says, the Daily News, New York One. He was more of a loving caring more into the females, a Ladies Guy, never a gang member. He just like to live his life, talk to females, chill with his homeboys and go to parties.

BOYCE: Donnell McFarland was a member of the Pretty Boy Family.

REPORTER: Inspector Robert Boyce heads the NYPD’s Gang Unit. He paints a very different picture of Donnell McFarland.

BOYCE: Donnell McFarland had a problem with this guy James Kelly who had just gotten out of jail and words were passed back and forth and he was shot over an argument. And in the heat of the argument was shot in the head and killed.

REPORTER: Boyce says because of the easy availability of handguns the stakes are high when it comes to potential gang activity.

Just since McFarland’s May 15th murder 20 young Black and Latino males have been killed by handguns.

But other key adult authority figures like the local High School principal, teachers and parents say the 83rd precinct over reacted the day of the wake. Lurie Daniel-Favors, a local resident and attorney has been counseling some of the teens who were arrested.

DANIEL-FAVOR: That’s what adds insult to injury is that these kids never got to say good-bye to their friend and that’s what they were doing. They had had letters from their school releasing them from class to go and say good-bye and pay their final respects and that was taken from them and that is something they’ll never get back whether the charges are dropped or not

REPORTER: DA Hynes says he has no plans on dropping the charges but that none of the kids should see jail time. He wants them to do community service. But the kids appear to have embarked on a self-defined course of community service pushing they say for greater accountability for the police. For WNYC I am Bob Hennelly