On the Demise of NYC's Lady Liberty

I met Wendy at Wednesday's NY City Council hearing on police conduct during the Republican National Convention. Wendy and I testified on the same panel. Her report appeared in the NY Daily News last week, but it was edited. She sent this as the unedited version of her story.

Feel free to re-publish it.

Mitchel




From: Wendy Stefanelli

Hello my dear friends, family & colleagues,

Please take the time to read my story of being unjustly locked away for 47 hours by the NYPD & pass it on to all your friends because sadly the press is not giving us the full story. Maybe you have heard this week of the many so called "anarchists" being locked up in New York at the piers & then thrown in jail during the republican convention? I was one of the falsely arrested people who Bloomberg considers a threat & has compared to the 911
terrorists. Quote from the NY Times…

"It is true that a handful of people have tried to destroy our city by going up and yelling at visitors here because they don't agree with their views," Mr. Bloomberg said. "Think about what that says. This is America, New York, cradle of liberty, the city for free speech if there ever was one and some people think that we shouldn't allow people to express themselves.
That's exactly what the terrorists did, if you think about it, on 9/11. Now this is not the same kind of terrorism but there's no question that these anarchists are afraid to let people speak out."

Although I have marched in several anti war protests in the last couple of years on the night I was arrested, Aug 31st, I was NOT. Around 8:30pm, having just finished work, my friend Gwynne & I were going to have a drink. We saw hundreds of police running everywhere on 26th St. then up Park Ave. A man, who later turned out to be an undercover cop, suggested
to us that if we see police going down the street to go the other way because there could be trouble. Mind you, at no point did he tell us that if we did not disperse we would be arrested. I then saw a man being cuffed and thrown down who said he had done nothing. The cop was using a lot of force & I asked that he please not hurt this man. Right after, the
undercover cop returned. He told 2 other cops to arrest my friend & myself as I was trying to call a friend who might have a camera to come and document this injustice. There was total chaos. Another officer was yelling to get away. Another grabbed Gwynne’s arm, but then let go of her. Being less fortunate, I was cuffed & thrown on the sidewalk to sit with several others. We were then netted in as criminals. I asked one officer if I could use my cell phone with my cuffed hands. He did not mind. However, I was screamed at by one of his superiors who came over & turned off my phone. No call to the outside world would be allowed. We all sat there while the cops video taped us and people on the streets took photos. After about 15 or 20 minutes I heard an officer say that they needed 5 women. I looked next to me, there were many males & only 4 other females. I made 5. Quota for that street corner, I suppose…

We were loaded onto an empty MTA bus & waited until it was full and then, for no apparent reason, for a couple more hours. My cuffs were too tight & I asked if they could please be loosened as my shoulder bag had been cuffed as well. It was weighing down my cuffs making them tighter. The officer who was assigned as my arresting officer an hour later (even though she did not witness my arrest) had to eventually cut my cuffs in order to take my workbag & purse into possession. I was then cuffed again just as tightly for over 4 hours.

The bus finally drove to pier 57, where rumor had it there was asbestos, oil and other toxic substances on the floor. We waited on the bus for quite sometime, as there was a long line of buses ahead of us. One of the women said that she needed to use the restroom. Tough luck, not the cop’s problem. A man on the back of the bus from Oregon named Brian was very sick. He had Crone’s disease & his colostomy bag had burst. He was throwing up all over the back of the bus. The entire bus begged the officers present to please get medical attention to this man. They completely ignored us. We asked that he be let off the bus first. Again, they ignored us.

Around 1:00am my cuffs were finally cut off. This was the 1st opportunity to use the port-a-pot. We were given a stale wonder bread & cheese sandwich & locked in one of the many barbed wire fenced cells within the former transportation depot. Women had to sit/lay on the filthy black cold concrete pavement only to be covered immediately in soot. Some women broke out in a rash. There were no mats or blankets and the fans were blowing directly on us. We asked for the fans to be turned off as we were freezing. The police refused. Our water supply ran out & I had to ask many times before a new tank was put in for us to drink from.

At some point after sunrise, we were hungry. There was a large box of cereal on the floor by the other side of the fence. An officer told us that there was not enough for all of us, so therefore nobody could have any. Apparently, the average prisoner does not share…One bold young girl (did I mention that I was in the cell with at least 15 girls under the age
of 18?) finally decided to break through the fence into the box & hand out the individual mini boxes of stale flakes. Naturally, we divided them equally & each person had a handful.

Around noon on Wednesday, after watching many many inmates leave before us, mostly men, I was finally about to board the correctional detention bus to go to the Center St. jail. On the bus already was a young lady named Tonya. She was screaming that her wrists hurt & yelling at the officer to stop touching her. She was trying to loosen her cuffs because of her hypoglycemic condition. She asked for her cuffs to be loosened & instead had them tightened & was forcefully locked into the solitary confinement section on the bus. We all pleaded with the driver/officer to please please loosen her cuffs, if nothing else, as her wrists were turning blue. We were completely ignored. We all then screamed, “medical emergency” over & over and were again completely disregarded by all of the officers standing outside the bus. The bus officer then drove as fast as possible with a police escort to Center St. trying to scare us and causing several cars to slam to a halt.

We waited on the bus with only a few open windows & painful wrists for at least another hour, watching 20-30 cops hanging out in the quad area eating bagels & talking. Many other buses of females came after us & got the honored privilege of entering jail first. I guess the driver was trying to teach us what happens when you speak out in this so-called freecountry. Is it really us “anarchists” who are afraid to let people speak out Dear Mr. Bloomberg?

A couple of hours later, our tight plastic hand cuffs were cut off, only to be replaced by metal daisy chain cuffs linking our wrists together in a single file line. Inside, for hours ladies were moved from cell to cell randomly. We were constantly being called off the list individually & then put in the cell next door, only to be moved back an hour or two later. It made no sense. There was much confusion on the part of the officers. They did not seem to know what was going on themselves. There was no rhyme or reason for which name would be called next to be “processed“.

A young woman in her mid 20’s was crying. She had been crossing the street on her way home & like many of us was falsely arrested (including the peaceful protesters, I might add). She was one of the 1st girls to be locked up and she watched as many females were being released before her, despite their much later arrest. A girl named Charlie (late 20’s) who had been pepper sprayed in the face/eyes was denied medical treatment for 8 hours. Another innocent lady who I spoke with showed me her wrist, which, due to her cuffs being too tight, had been sliced as the cop cut them off. There were plenty of people who had been shopping who had been caught up in the city’s sweep too. I heard they even got a man delivering Chinese food on his bike. Come on, who are we trying to protect anyway & from
what? The people who live here crossing the street are now the new victims.

At one point, we counted to see how many of us were in the 20x 25 square foot cell as we were packed in like sardines. 105 of us!!! We could barely move. Good luck trying to cross the room to use the toilet with no door or to drink the dirty tap water from the sink in this cell. After many hours of telling the officers that this was a fire hazard we refused to have any more women in our cell. They eventually moved several of us to the practically empty cell next door. A lucky few made their phone calls at this time. I asked if I could have some Tylenol for my migraine headache. I was told they did not give meds. I asked if I could see a nurse. I was told not in this part of the building, but that I could later.

At around 10:30 pm on Wed night I was finally allowed to make my 1st phone call. No answer. We were offered bruised apples & oranges & later the occasional soy sandwich on stale white bread because there were so many vegetarian “criminals “ in there. However, we had to drink tap water from the filthy sink. There was no soap at any of the sinks to clean our blackened and possibly toxic hands. I asked several different officers if we could have blankets, pillows, or mats. I was told they only have 4 mats in the whole building for the “pregnant prisoners” downstairs. I requested some pain pills once again & they say I had to ask where I had initially asked. Meanwhile, 3 women were suffering from asthma and were denied treatment for many hours.

I made myself get an hour or two of sleep, the only sleep I was to have during my forced 47 hour visit to the slammer. The girl lying on the cold damp concrete floor next to me was kind enough to share her sweater as a pillow, buffering our faces from the scum.

On Sept 2nd early in the morning we were moved again chained to one another by the wrists, passing more chained females in the halls. Our fingerprints were finally taken after the officer actually sprayed & scrubbed our hands directly with Windex to clean off the pier dirt. That was well over my 36th hour. A sarcastic male officer told us we were all about to go home any minute. We were split up once again. Although we informed the police that
there were several women, including myself, that suffered from asthma they continued to spay our poorly ventilated cell with Lysol. I made yet another plead for painkillers for many of us, which once again fell upon deaf ears.

A few hours later we were called in random groups of five to go & have mug shots taken downstairs somewhere in the usual daisy chain fashion. After my photo was taken, an officer sitting at a desk near the camera asked how I was. I said that I had a severe migraine & back pain & that I needed painkillers at the very least. He handed me 2 Tylenol, that
simple. Outrageous after being told they did not have any in the building. There was no water there, but I eventually got some good old jail tap.

Despite thinking we were about to go to court as we were told, we were taken back to the 12th floor. So we sang peaceful songs and learned radical cheers to pass the time & heard each other’s stories. The only thing that got us through this nightmare was each other. The amazing support of each & every one of the women & girls in there will not be forgotten.

At long last, around 5pm on Thurs the 2nd, I was put in the cell next to the court.I asked for a lawyer from the National Lawyers Guild & was advised to take the ACD (adjournment in contemplation of dismissal) that was being offered at that hour, otherwise there could be a possible misdemeanor on my record. I was down for parading without a permit & 2 counts of disorderly conduct. Little 5”3” me trying to help a guy out… If I chose to plead not
guilty, I was told I would have to stay in jail longer that night. The judge basically wanted everyone out and not clogging the system with their inconvenient “not guilty” pleas to be dealt with at later date.

So, at 7:30 pm, 2 nights after my arrest, I was told by the judge that as long as I am “good” for the next 6 months that my case will be sealed & dismissed. I guess that means don’t walk down the streets of New York. And above all, do not help or talk to strangers…

Luckily there are organizations helping all of those arrested. There most likely will be a massive civil law suit. I have been in contact with the National Lawyers Guild & the New York Civil Liberties Union.

If you have managed to read my story, I thank you for taking the time and I further encourage you to get angry & speak your mind to the mayor, the press & each other. It goes without saying, but please make sure to vote & get others to do the same. What happened is not ok. If this can happen to me, it can happen to you.

Be well. Be active,
Wendy

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