{"id":8865,"date":"2020-02-03T14:53:12","date_gmt":"2020-02-03T19:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/idavox.com\/?p=8865"},"modified":"2020-02-04T12:12:37","modified_gmt":"2020-02-04T17:12:37","slug":"nyc-actions-continue-with-latest-day-of-action-against-nypd-mta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/idavox.com\/index.php\/2020\/02\/03\/nyc-actions-continue-with-latest-day-of-action-against-nypd-mta\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC Actions Continue with Latest Day of Action Against NYPD, MTA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This has been going on for a while now, with no signs of it abating!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

On Friday, January 31, thousands of people across New York City participated in a day of action against the police and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), under the name of FTP (fuck the police, among other things<\/a>) and J31 (January 31). A coalition of groups called for the actions, including Decolonize This Place<\/a>, NYC Shut it Down<\/a>, Take Back the Bronx<\/a>, and Why Accountability<\/a>, around four demands: \u201ccops out of the subway,\u201d \u201cfree transit,\u201d \u201cend the harassment of performers and vendors,\u201d and \u201cfull accessibility for people of varying abilities.\u201d
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The day\u2019s events, billed as FTP 3, followed marches \u2013 FTP 1 and FTP 2 \u2013 held in previous months that kicked off after widely publicized incidents of violence<\/a> and harassment<\/a> by the police on the subway. This time, tactics were broadened: dispersed, autonomous actions throughout the day, followed by a mobile, disruptive convergence on the Subway in the evening.  
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Friday\u2019s demonstrations were notable for their decentralized nature and efficacy. The first FTP march<\/a> was wildly successful yet still met with relatively light repression; the second was met with heavier repression<\/a>. Organizers adapted their tactics this time around. They published an Operations Manual<\/a> and had organizing and training meetings in the lead up, encouraging and empowering people to self-organize, spread propaganda, and conduct direct action against the police and MTA. The convergence also remixed the basic form of a protest march, instead taking to the Subway in mass fare evasion: \u201cThe Actions are the Journey,\u201d Decolonize This Place posted<\/a>.
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Actions earlier in the day were broad. People were swiped into the subway at the Gun Hill Road station in the Bronx<\/a> and Jamaica Center<\/a> in Queens. Banners were dropped across the city, most notably inside the Oculus<\/a>, a $4 billion transit-hub-cum-shopping-mall. People posted and passed out propaganda inside the Bronx courthouse<\/a>. A rally<\/a> was held on the step street on W 167 between Shakespeare and Anderson Avenues, that has become known as the \u201cJoker Stairs\u201d after a movie drawing tourists to them, against the police and the gentrification and tourism they enable. Students and supporters gathered outside the Department of Education rallied<\/a> for the demands of the day and extended them to schools: cops out, tuition free. Most commonly, people locked or zip-tied emergency exit doors<\/a> open throughout the subway system, making fare evasion easier and more accessible, and spread propaganda graffiti<\/a> throughout the city. 
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In addition, the day was preceded by weeks of heavy propaganda posting to promote the action and its goals, from the small scale<\/a> to the replacement of advertisements<\/a> at bus shelters.
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At 5:00 p.m. over a thousand people gathered inside Grand Central Terminal<\/a>, which has often been a hub of demonstrations in New York since the Black Lives Matter uprising in late 2014, that followed the non-indictment of Former New York Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who killed Eric Garner in July of that year. The state came seemingly prepared: the entire station was surrounded by barricades and filled with NYPD, MTA Police, and Department of Homeland Security personnel. A conventional march wasn\u2019t the plan, though: almost immediately, the crowd swarmed into the Subway at Grand Central and nearby stations, making for Restoration Plaza, a public space in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Along the way<\/a>, the demonstration held space on the trains and applied even more graffiti across the Subway system.
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At Restoration Plaza, the demonstrators rallied<\/a>, then marched some around Bedford-Stuyvesant<\/a>. Later, most of the demonstrators got back on the train in another mass fare evasion and headed to 1 Police Plaza, the NYPD\u2019s headquarters building, to wait for the release of and support their comrades<\/a> being held there. In total, 45 demonstrators were arrested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#FTP<\/a> protesters are trying to get on the train to get to the next location but the anti-protest NYPD Strategic Response Group (SRG) is being violent as usual. The cops have already been brutal tonite & are specifically blocking protesters from getting on any train in the area. pic.twitter.com\/xGGnWTKOF0<\/a><\/p>\u2014 Ash J (@AshAgony) February 1, 2020<\/a><\/blockquote>