With his surge in recent polls and the spamming of our social media, New Yorkers have been talking a lot about Mike Bloomberg. We think you should listen to us, we know this guy (we said the same thing about Trump). He was our mayor for 3 terms, over a decade. A lot of us have stories, especially about the stop-and-frisk “program” of policing that Bloomberg championed from 2002-2013, all eleven years he held the office.
My friend writer/comedian/actor Andrew Sanford shared the below stop-and-frisk story on his Facebook page. It manages to be both unnerving and funny at the same time. It’s a perfect personal story that illustrates this New York cliche of the early 2000s: If you were a brown or black man, you would be stopped by the police. You’d likely be harassed. And it was almost certainly for no other reason than the color of your skin.
STOP AND FRISK STORY TIME with ANDREW SANFORD
I was stopped and frisked about a decade ago. Spoiler alert, it wasn’t as bad as other POC have been forced to deal with but it went as follows:
At about 2:30 in the morning, me and a friend (who is white) were walking through Brooklyn from my old apartment to my new apartment. I was loudly and badly playing a harmonica, he was smoking a cigarette. A cop van slowly pulls up next to us, window down, like we were doing something wrong.
I assumed my harmonica playing late at night was the problem (I had only lived in NYC about two years) so I quickly put it away and put a hand up to apologize. The cops completely stop the van, rush out and one puts me up against the wall and begins searching my pockets.
Cop – What do you have? What were you doing?
Me – Sorry, it’s a harmonica.
Cop – You sure about that?
He finally finds the harmonica and holds it up. After a moment he continues to search me.
Cop – You got anything else? You better tell me.
Me – No!
He reaches into the back pockets of my jeans.
Cop – What’s this?
The cop pulls out a small, plastic ring.
Me – … It’s a Green Lantern ring.
Cop – A what?!
Me – A Green Lantern ring… well technically it’s an Indigo Lantern ring. They have a different ring for each color of the emotional spectrum- –
Cop – Alright, that’s enough.
He finally takes his hands off of me and backs up.
Me – What’s the problem, officer? Was the harmonica too loud?
Cop – We just wanted to make sure you two weren’t smoking anything, ya know.
(Reminder, I was not smoking anything but I was the one searched. However at this point, I realize I’m in the clear)
Me – Whatever do you mean, officer?
Cop – Ok, get outta here. Get where you’re goin.
My friend takes the harmonica and plays “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas” as the cops get into their van. They laugh.
This was one of the most frightening and invasive things I’ve dealt with as a New Yorker but a similar story would often go so much worse for so many others.
On another morning, this time around 9 AM, I was exiting a subway station on 191st street. Hoodie up, weed in my bag, tired and “suspicious looking”. Walking next to me is a younger boy who is much darker than me. He’s also much better dressed. Fly shirt buttoned all the way up, stylish thin framed glasses, backpack on, posture immaculate (mine is terrible). The opposite of “suspicious looking. I presume he was heading to school.
There are two cops checking people as they are leaving the station. Something I had never seen before and have not seen since. I tense up but am soon relieved. They don’t stop me, they stop the kid next to me. The one with darker skin. They go through his bag. I exit free and clear.
I did not stick around to see what happened to him. I hope it just ended up being a minor inconvenience, like mine was, that damaged his trust in the NYPD and not something worse.
All this to say, Fuck Michael Bloomberg.
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Thank you so much, Andrew, for sharing your story here. Check out Andrew’s awesome comedy podcast Half White Son of a Black Man. You can also catch us both frequently on the first Friday of the month, performing with The Drunk Texts at the PIT.
Yes, Andrew definitely fot off easy I’ve seen children as young as 12 get handcuffed and brought to the precinct because if stop and frisk and their crime was being a loud teenager getting off the train The reality of being a black person in NYC is a very different and stressful one depending on who’s in office. I hope that voters aren’t thinking of switching one “billionaire” for another one in November because Lord knows that means nothing good for POC.’s if Bloomberg’ s tenure as mayor is any indication.
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