Citing Concerns About An Increase In Police Checkpoints In Our Neighborhood, Equality For Flatbush Will Launch Community Survey

Saying gentrifying neighborhoods in Brooklyn are overwhelmingly and unfairly targeted for DUI checkpoints, Equality for Flatbush, a grassroots organization that works on anti-gentrification efforts in our neighborhood, recently announced it will launch a six-month community survey on NYPD checkpoints in Flatbush and East Flatbush in November.

The group’s announcement follows a litany of concerns from area organizers and residents, who said they have increasingly noticed more DUI checkpoints in our area of Brooklyn. While the residents say they, clearly, are against drinking and driving, the neighbors say that many residents feel as though the checkpoints are there less for public safety and instead are a form of harassment meant to further make community members feel uncomfortable in the area in which they have long lived.

“The overwhelming prevalence of NYPD checkpoints in Flatbush and East Flatbush has been part of the discussion at our community meetings,” Nevin Rao, an organizer with Equality for Flatbush and new Flatbush resident, said in an Equality for Flatbush press release. “Many people have talked about witnessing an increase in the amounts of checkpoints over this year . When we have gone out flyering, lots of community members have seen checkpoints being set up on a weekly basis in their neighborhoods and see it as a form of harassment. This is why NYPD checkpoint surveillance has become one of the focuses of our work anti-police repression work. ”

The project to document the number of checkpoints in Brooklyn also follows research from April Uzarski, a law student an Equality for Flatbush organizer, who found that there have been 33 DUI checkpoints documented in Brooklyn this year, compared to one in Staten Island, one in Queens, and two in Manhattan, based on data from a website that collects information about checkpoints in the city. We’ve reached out to the NYPD about these statistics and how they compare to years past, as well as this matter in general, and we’ll update this as soon as they respond.

“The 33 checkpoints were disproportionately in neighborhoods of color that are rapidly gentrifying,” said Uzarski, who said she began her research after noticing an increase in checkpoints in her neighborhood in East Flatbush.

“These are just the checkpoints that we could find online,” Uzarski continued. “We know this is just the tip of the iceberg. So we want to conduct our own research and investigation of NYPD checkpoints in Flatbush and East Flatbush. Again, I want to know why our neighborhood? Why now?”

Imani Henry, the founder of Equality for Flatbush, in May documented a traffic checkpoint in which more than 20 police officers stopped cars going southbound on Flatbush and Church Avenues. Henry, who has lived in Flatbush since 2002, was traveling on a bus when he said he was “shocked” by the “massive amount of police in the intersection.”

In addition to its six-month survey on the checkpoints, Equality for Flatbush will address this, and other police-related issues, with the East Flatbush Cop Watch Team at the Flatbush Library (22 Linden Boulevard) on November 18.

To find out more about Equality for Flatbush, you can visit its website and follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Photo via Equality for Flatbush.