Students of Color Say Unequal Treatment Common in Park Slope

Nearly 100 students, teachers and residents of Park Slope, Brooklyn, met Friday evening at the John Jay Educational Campus on Seventh Avenue to discuss their experiences with the police. Many who attend one of the four schools within the campus said they often don't feel welcome in the neighborhood. Teenagers huddled in the cafeteria and told stories of being treated harshly by officers in and out of school.

The town hall was organized after police last month informed a group of black youth who were walking together that they should "get out of the neighborhood."

Students who are members of racial minorities complained that when they enter their school building, they’re required to go through scanners like criminals; when they leave, they’re shooed off campus and sometimes out of the area all together. East Flatbush resident Steven Martin, 16, said when he’s with his friends they're often told to stop whatever they're doing.  "We're teenagers you know, we're walking, and we like to play around a lot. I feel like they're trying to tell us to stop walking… stop breathing”, he said.

Michael Salak, one of the teachers at Park Slope Collegiate, which is housed within John Jay, corroborated the student’s experience.  “Our kids are being ushered away and I don’t think that is happening in all the schools.”

At the end of the two-hour meeting, Lindsay Martinez, the Deputy Director of the NYPD's School Safety Division, said he couldn’t speak for the local precinct, only for the officers who patrol schools—including the 17 who work at John Jay. He was met with boos from the crowd when he said he wasn’t made aware of mistreatment before.

"This is a first that it was brought to our attention …but we will have future meetings,” he said. Martinez also reminded attendees that 90 percent of agents are minorities and they want all students to feel comfortable and safe.