Torture at the 17th Precinct (1970)
Torture at the 17th Precinct (1970)
by Jomo Raskin
On December 9th I was arrested at 50th street and 5th Avenue during a demonstration and march to protest the murder of Chairman Fred Hampton. The demonstration started at Park Avenue and 48th Street. Nixon was in the Waldorf receiving an award. At 50th and 5th windows had been broken in Sak’s 5th Avenue. Six windows. Inside people were doing their Christmas shopping. A policeman had been struck in the face. Blood was on his face. He took 17 stitches. I was walking down 50th Street. A plainclothes pig ran toward me, jumped on my back. At first I didn’t know he was a pig. Only when he handcuffed me was I sure. And he never identified himself as a cop. Several other pigs jumped me, 4 or 5. Pigs had been waiting inside St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which is opposite Sak’s. They weren’t praying. A few dozen demonstrators had tried to escape the police by entering the church; had tried to kneel down and pray for revolution, or peace, or safety. But the pigs inside the Church pushed them out and clubbed them on the Church steps. No sanctuary, no place.
Four or five pigs pushed and pulled me to the sidewalk. There was broken glass everywhere. I remember one pig with blue splotched bell bottom trousers and a moustache who kept yelling, He’s mine, he’s mine. Leave him to me. Awfully possessive, these pigs. And he whacked me over the head with his nightstick his identification mark. I put my hands over my head. Blood trickled down my face and my neck. It reminded me of my football days, of a big pile up on the 5 yard line. Then it was still. The noisy street was quiet. I was pulled to my feet and handcuffed to Bob Reilly, an actor, a teacher, the toughest battler I know. Arrested again. We were thrown into the pig car, taken to the 18th Precinct, driven down 5th Avenue, past all the expensive stores, past the stores filled with the loot of the world.
At the 18th the pigs stood us in a corner, banged me in the head a few times. The pig with bell bottoms and a moustache was puffing away on a big cheap cigar. The blood kept flowing. A few minutes after we arrived cops came in with another demonstrator. They threw him to the floor. He had long curly black hair. They yelled at him to get up. Have mercy, he cried. He couldn’t get up. They kicked him in the stomach, the ribs, the back. When I saw him in jail the next day at 100 Center Street, he had a big bandage over his forehead.
Reilly and I walked upstairs, the pigs behind us, prodding us on. The pigs filled out cards, asked us questions. Where do you live? Where do you work? When were you born? They didn’t like the fact that I teach at the State University at Stony Brook. This scum bag is a teacher at Stony Brook, one pig kept repeating. If we didn’t answer, or took our time answering questions, they clubbed us. We were put in a cell. One cop spat at me through the bars. His saliva oozed down the wall. He was safe with me behind bars.
Captain Finnigan showed up. He’s part of New York’s Red Squad. He’s at every demonstration taking photos. In his head, he has the face, the file on hundreds of revolutionaries. The word is that he went round to precincts that night pointing out the political heavies. He gave the O.K. to the cops to beat on us. Finnigan had a polaroid camera. He tried over and over again to take my picture, but the camera wasn’t working. Finally, he stopped trying.
Either he got the photo, or the machine just didn’t function. Finnigan looks like a ’59 graduate of Princeton. Ivy League. Every hair graying, is in place. He’s got on a three piece tweed suit-Brooks Brothers. He looks like a corporate executive; he’s a fascist. Always smiling and giving the orders. A number one enemy of the people.
From the 18th precinct we were taken to Roosevelt Hospital. Reilly got 12 stitches in his head. I got five. We were cleaned up, x-rayed. A pig stood by, all the time, with his gun and night stick. The nurses smiled cheerfully. The interns worked efficiently. Reilly rapped with them about the war, the murder of Fred Hampton. Our friends were waiting outside the Emergency Room Entrance-Barbara, Ann, Annie, Sydney, Mark, Dana, Nancy, Marty. Good to see smiling faces. Exchanged looks-clenched fists. Back to the 18th, a few bangs on the head, bleeding again. A lawyer, Paul Chevigny, shows up, asks how we are, and is quickly hustled out of the precinct. We’re taken to the 17th.
The 17th precinct is a torturer’s heaven. For an hour, Reilly and I were systematically and efficiently beaten by the pigs. We were taken into the squad room on the 1st floor. There were about 20 cops sitting and standing around.
So here are the pig fighters, they said. They put us in a corner. Our hands were handcuffed behind our backs. Our faces were to the wall. There was a metal coat rack and some pieces of wood with nails in them in the corner. We were thrown up against the metal coat rack and the lumber with the nails. Each pig had his special torture. One hit me with his nightstick in the calf. Another used a black jack on my back. A third hit my elbow with a pair of pliers. A fourth took running jumps and kicked me in the back. Another jumped on my toes. Everyone took turns hitting, kicking, spitting, name calling. I was called Fuck face, douche bag, commie, scum bag, an after-birth. At the start of the beating, Bob Reilly had shouted out, Hey, lieutenant, how’s about breaking up this caucus back here? The lieutenant never did and the pigs only beat on him worse for yelling out. The brutality was calculated. They stopped, examined our bodies, figured out the best place to hit us, or poke us. They hated us, but they were in control of their emotions and acts. One pig at a desk in the 17th said he hated me because I was taking air from him, because I was breathing his air. They hated us because we’re opposed to the war, because we support the NLF, because we defend the Panthers, because we’re for armed struggle. They hated us because we’re teachers.
Their big joke was, Raskin teaches Riot I, and Reilly teaches Riot II. They hated us because we’re rioters, because we’re fighters.
The pigs who beat us tried to act tough, but they’re wimps. They’re puny. It doesn’t take any courage for 20 pigs to beat on two guys who are handcuffed behind their backs. On 50th Street and 5th Avenue I saw a pig who was bleeding crying out for an ambulance, whimpering. The TPF (Tactical Police Force) are Hitler youth, New York’s 55, and they’re afraid, chicken.
For about a half hour, we were beaten in the squad room. Another demonstrator witnessed much of the beating. Then we were taken downstairs into the basement. Every time you go up or downstairs the pigs try to trip you. They push you up or down the stairs, stick out their feet and warn you, Watch it, you wouldn’t want to hurt yourself. They play petty games. The pig tells you your name is fuck face…ยท What’s your name? he asks. When you don’t answer, he beats you. When you say, fuck face, he stops. You play cat and mouse, see how much you can take.
The room in the basement was dark. It had a cold cement floor, and cold cement walls, a sink and a faucet. We were beaten for another half hour. Night sticks were rammed into my stomach. The pigs asked us, Have you had enough? You won’t mess with us anymore now, will you? Going to fight pigs anymore? One pig stuck pins in my back to see if I had any nerve sensations left. When I didn’t feel anything, he stopped beating on me.
People have asked me how I stood the beating and what I was thinking about. I didn’t do much thinking. What I did think about was Bobby Seale and Nguyen Van Troi, the VC fighter who was assassinated for attempting to kill McNamara when he visited Vietnam. I knew that they had taken a lot worse than I was getting. If they could take it, then I could. At one point between the beatings, Bob Reilly turned to me and’ said, with a smile, Chairman Bobby. I was thinking about Bobby Seale too. The pigs could never destroy that world, that connection, that feeling of comradeship in struggle.
Bobby Seale, live like him. Nguyen Van Troi, live like him. Those words hadn’t meant much before I was beaten. I had written them on walls. I had spoken them. But only in the 17th precinct did they come to have meaning. The name Bobby Seale was like armor I put on to shield the pigs blows. Nguyen Van Troi is a light inside the heart. They make you feel that you’re a lot stronger than the pigs, that there are people all over the world fighting with you, that you’re on their side.
I’m sitting writing this in a room. All around the room are OSPAAAL posters from Cuba, posters proclaiming Days of Solidarity with people all over the world struggling for National Liberation. Most of the posters show ancient tools, statues, relics, and modern weapons. Through the gun lies national liberation. That is the message. It’s that feeling of solidarity with people fighting the pigs of the world I have looking at the OSPAAAL posters, posted up in a ring around the room, the same feeling I had thinking of Bobby Seale and Nguyen Van Troi in the 17th precinct.
People come out and visit us. How are the victims, some of them say. But we aren’t victims. We’re the victors.
From the 17th precinct we were taken to the 4th precinct. We spent the night on hard wooden benches. Going down to the 4th in the squad car there were three of us-Reilly, myself and a beautiful hippie. He was bandaged on the head. He had been beaten. Reilly and I were trying to catch our breath, leaning our heads back. This hippie rapped with the pigs and took the pressure off us. He cooled them, controlled them. This kid was up for anything and everything. He had been beat on bad but he was still going strong. He rapped with the cops about Tom Jefferson, communes, Senator Joseph McCarthy, The Rat, about communism. He wasn’t afraid of anything. He would have taken on those pigs then and there if they had unhandcuffed him. My head was aching, my legs and arms were bruised, but inside, in my bones, this kid made me feel that the Revolution was coming. No mistake about it.
Source: Leviathan Feb 1970
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