The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York. Established on May 23, 1845, the NYPD is the largest, and one of the oldest, municipal police departments in the United States.
The Koch family foundations are a group of charitable foundations in the United States associated with the family of Fred C. Koch. The most prominent of these are the Charles Koch Foundation and the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation, created by Charles Koch and David Koch, two sons of Fred C. Koch who own the majority of Koch Industries, an oil, gas, paper, and chemical conglomerate which is the US's second-largest privately held company. Charles' and David's foundations have provided millions of dollars to a variety of organizations, including libertarian and conservative think tanks. Areas of funding include think tanks, political advocacy, climate change denial, higher education scholarships, cancer research, arts, and science.
Patrick Albert Moore is a Canadian industry consultant, former activist, and past president of Greenpeace Canada. Since leaving Greenpeace in 1986, Moore has criticized the environmental movement for what he sees as scare tactics and disinformation, saying that the environmental movement "abandoned science and logic in favor of emotion and sensationalism". Greenpeace has criticized Moore, calling him "a paid spokesman for the nuclear industry, the logging industry, and genetic engineering industry" who "exploits long-gone ties with Greenpeace to sell himself as a speaker and pro-corporate spokesperson".
The Tompkins Square Park riot occurred on August 6–7, 1988 in Tompkins Square Park, located in the East Village and Alphabet City neighborhoods of Manhattan, New York City. Groups of "drug pushers, homeless people and young people known as squatters and punks," had largely taken over the park. The East Village and Alphabet City communities were divided about what, if anything, should be done about it. The local governing body, Manhattan Community Board 3, recommended, and the New York City Parks Department adopted a 1 a.m. curfew for the previously 24-hour park, in an attempt to bring it under control. On July 31, a protest rally against the curfew saw several clashes between protesters and police.
Stephen J. Powers is an American contemporary artist and muralist. He is also known by the name ESPO, and Steve Powers. He lives in New York City.
Throughout the history of the New York City Police Department, numerous instances of corruption and misconduct, and other allegations of such, have occurred. Over 12,000 cases have resulted in lawsuit settlements totaling over $400 million during a five-year period ending in 2014. In 2019, taxpayers funded $68,688,423 as the cost of misconduct lawsuits, a 76 percent increase over the previous year, including about $10 million paid out to two exonerated individuals who had been falsely convicted and imprisoned.
The following is a timeline of Occupy Wall Street (OWS), a protest which began on September 17, 2011 on Wall Street, the financial district of New York City and included the occupation of Zuccotti Park, where protesters established a permanent encampment. The Occupy movement splintered after NYC Mayor Bloomberg had police raid the encampment in Zuccotti Park on November 15, 2011. The timeline here is limited to this particular protest during this approximate time-frame.
On July 17, 2014, Eric Garner, a 43-year-old African-American man, was killed in the New York City borough of Staten Island by Daniel Pantaleo, a New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer, after the latter put him in a prohibited chokehold while arresting him. Video footage of the incident generated widespread national attention and raised questions about the use of force by law enforcement.
Akai Gurley, a 28-year-old black man, was fatally shot on November 20, 2014, in Brooklyn, New York City, United States, by a New York City Police Department officer. Two police officers, patrolling stairwells in the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA)'s Louis H. Pink Houses in East New York, Brooklyn, entered a pitch-dark, unlit stairwell. Officer Peter Liang, 27, had his firearm drawn. Gurley and his girlfriend entered the seventh-floor stairwell, fourteen steps below them. Liang fired his weapon; the shot ricocheted off a wall and fatally struck Gurley in the chest. A jury convicted Liang of manslaughter, which a court later reduced to criminally negligent homicide.
On December 20, 2014, Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley shot and killed Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu — two on-duty New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers — in the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. Brinsley then fled into the New York City Subway, where he died by suicide. Earlier in the day, before he killed Ramos and Liu, Brinsley had shot and wounded his ex-girlfriend Shaneka Thompson in Baltimore after initially pointing the gun at his own head.
Caroline Woolard is an American artist, and organizer, whose work explores intersections between art and the solidarity economy. She primarily works collaboratively and collectively and was a founding member of Trade School, OurGoods, BFAMFAPhD and the New York City Real Estate Investment Cooperative. Woolard used to work as an Assistant Professor of Sculpture at the University of Hartford and a mentor at the School of Visual Arts. She is now working for Open Collective and Open Collective Foundation.
The bust of Edward Snowden, called Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument 2.0 by its creators, was an ephemeral, illegally installed public sculpture of Edward Snowden, an American whistleblower who leaked classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) and was charged with federal crimes as a result. The bronze-like bust was placed in Fort Greene Park in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, New York City, on April 6, 2015. This sparked outrage by the Society of Old Brooklynites It was attached to a Doric column on the perimeter of the park's Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument, a memorial and crypt which honors and inters the more than 11,500 American prisoners of war who died in the American Revolution while housed on British prison ships.
The Climate Museum is a nonprofit organization in New York City and the first museum dedicated to climate change and climate solutions in the United States. Its mission is "to inspire action on the climate crisis with programming across the arts and sciences that deepens understanding, builds connections, and advances just solutions." The Climate Museum presents free exhibitions, art installations, youth programs and other public programs at pop-up locations in New York City, its seasonal at its seasonal exhibition hub on Governors Island, in public spaces citywide, and through virtual events.
Beka Economopoulos is an American artist and director of the art, activism, technology, and theory non-profit "Not An Alternative". She is a co-founder and director of a traveling pop-up museum, The Natural History Museum, as well as an organizer of the March for Science.
The Crown Heights Tenant Union (CHTU) is a tenants union created in October 2013 to unify old and new tenants against the gentrification of the Crown Heights, Brooklyn neighborhood. The CHTU has pushed for local collective bargaining agreements between tenants and landlords to be written into the deeds of buildings that would regulate rent increases and codify repair and renovation standards. They also assist individual tenants, educating them on their rights and how to enforce them, lobby in Albany for better rent laws, and participate in direct action, targeting predatory equity real-estate companies they believe to be involved in illegal evictions and harassment tactics.
Decolonize This Place is a movement based in New York City that organizes around Indigenous rights, black liberation, Palestinian nationalism, de-gentrification, and economic inequality. Their actions often take place at museums and cultural institutions and focus on colonialist tendencies within the art world.
George Floyd protests in New York City took place at several sites in each of the five New York City boroughs, starting on May 28, 2020, in reaction to the murder of George Floyd. Most of the protests were peaceful, while some sites experienced protester and/or police violence, including several high-profile incidents of excessive force. Looting became a parallel issue, especially in Manhattan. As a result, and amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the city was placed under curfew from June 1–7, the first curfew in the city since 1943. The protests catalyzed efforts at police reform, leading to the criminalization of chokeholds during arrests, the repeal of 50-a, and other legislation. Several murals and memorials have been created around the city in George Floyd's honor, and demonstrations against racial violence and police brutality continued as part of the larger Black Lives Matter movement in New York City.
Grayson Earle is an American contemporary artist and activist. He uses new media to make political statements, known for his guerilla video projections as a member of The Illuminator Art Collective., and his co-creation of Bail Bloc which is a computer program that bails people out of jail. In 2020, he hacked the Hans Haacke career retrospective exhibition at the New Museum to criticize the Museum's efforts to union bust its employees. Earle is an outspoken anti-capitalist and professor at the New School.
New York City has been the site of many Black Lives Matter protests in response to incidents of police brutality and racially motivated violence against black people. The Black Lives Matter movement began as a hashtag after the shooting death of African-American teen Trayvon Martin, and became nationally recognized for street demonstrations following the 2014 deaths of two African Americans, Michael Brown and Eric Garner. Garner was killed in the Staten Island borough of New York City, leading to protests, demonstrations, and work towards changes in policing and the law. Following the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota in 2020, the global response included extensive protests in New York City, and several subsequent changes to policy.
