Jonathan Adams

NYPD Continues to Blow Smoke About Pot Arrests

Randy Credico, a drug law reform advocate at the William Moses Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice, says Gay St., the small Greenwich Village block where he lives between Waverly and Christopher, is a dangerous place for young people of color smoking marijuana.

Having fought against the Rockefeller laws for years, many times Credico will warn people not to light up on his block because he knows that undercover cops patrol the area.

“The cops are always making arrests here, and so I tell people not to light up, that they’re going to get busted,” he said. “Since when is it a crime to tell people, ‘Listen, don’t break the law.’”

Despite run-ins with the NYPD, Credico has been documenting the drug arrests made on his block. And “he plans to use the pictures to illustrate a comprehensive study to be posted online to prove his claim that the justice system is unfair, especially to people of color.”

Read more on the New York Times blog where Credico talks about being arrested by the NYPD for “berating police officers making a pot arrest on Gay Street.”

Posted at 9:01 AM, Jul 02, 2008 in Criminal Justice | Permalink | View Comments