Weeding out a cop critic
June 19, 2008
By Ellis Henican for amNewYork
He’s being hailed in Greenwich Village as a 21st-Century Paul Revere.
It isn’t, however, the British that Randy Credico is warning about. It’s undercover cops nabbing young people in small-time marijuana busts.
And now that he’s been arrested for mouthing off during a sidewalk pot bust, Credico is at the center of a serious First Amendment debate: How far can a citizen go in speaking up against police tactics?
“You’re telling me I can’t warn people not to smoke pot?” Credico asked incredulously. “This is no different from me telling someone, ‘Hey, don’t break windows. It’s against law.’ I’m just expressing myself in a peaceful, nonthreatening way.”
Credico is no stranger to controversy.
A longtime opponent of New York’s Rockefeller drug laws, he is executive director of the William Moses Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice. Credico’s court battle comes as misdemeanor marijuana arrests have reached record highs. Queens College sociologist Harry G. Levine recently calculated that the NYPD made 400,000 pot-possession arrests between 1997 and 2007, a 10-fold increase from the previous decade.
Credico has been out with his camera in the Village, documenting the arrest wave. On several occasions, he’s exchanged words with narcotics officers. On Thursday of last week, the street-corner stare-downs finally blew up.
“I was barbecuing at my office on Gay Street,” Credico said. “Right out front, it was like a major crime scene, cops everywhere. A blue-and-white patrol car. Two unmarked police cars. Cops on bikes. And one skinny little teenager in handcuffs.”
Arrested for marijuana possession.
“Another big bust!” Credico remembered calling out from the stoop. “How many of you guys does it take to arrest one person for smoking a joint?”
“There might have been some street language in there,” Credico said. “But that was after they said much worse to me.”
Soon enough, Randy Credico was in handcuffs too, charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. He spent the night in Central Booking. He’s due back in court Sept. 3.
The city had no comment.
“Randy wasn’t threatening anyone,” said his lawyer, Kathy Huang. “Even if he did use colorful language, there’s nothing in the penal law that prohibits that. The police have got to have a thicker skin.”
Read full article online here.
Filed in: Campaign News