16 de diciembre de 2012

- Welfare Poets

Last night, Saturday December 15th 2012, at around 5pm in East Harlem (El Barrio), two members of the socio-political Hip Hop fusion band, The Welfare Poets (Michael Pacheco - The Legendary M.I.C. and Keith Hughes - Dahu Alah), along with their film crew Ricky Turner and Wander Acosta (who are also members of the Hip Hop group Lower Class Citizens) were arrested while filming a music video at the NYCHA's James Weldon Johnson Houses by NYPD for criminal trespassing, a misdemeanor. Additionally Iz The Truth (Israel Balleto) of Guerrilla Republik (a progressive Hip Hop clothing company and organization in which the Welfare Poets are directly a part of) and Boom Box were also arrested. The Welfare Poets were filming footage for an upcoming music video.

In a case like this, anyone arrested is booked at a precinct (in this case, the NYPD Service Area #5) and sent downtown to Manhattan Central Booking to be processed -- for a misdemeanor a normal person would be out in less than 24 hours. Although this might be the case for the two Welfare Poets and the others who were with them, what makes what happened here different is when they were all initially stopped by the cops, the police officers said they would probably be given a summons and released without going to the precinct. Once the cops found out that the collective were part of The Welfare Poets, the officers started claiming that the group was connected to Los Macheteros and how they knew about them (The Welfare Poets) -- how they have has their eyes on the collective for some time. The officers called their sergeant and it was decided to arrest the six and take them to the precinct to be booked and eventually sent downtown for further processing thru central booking where they would face an arraignment judge. At least seven cops came to arrest group.

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