If you didn’t see our previous report on this subject, take a look at the news archives. It goes like this, the group members were posing for photographs when they were approached by two female officers who demanded their identification. The group asked the reason for the request. DPZ spokesperson Rosa Clemente says the police persisted, saying, “‘What’s the problem, just show us ID,'” and that the rappers asked, “‘For what? Why do we have to show you ID? There’s hundreds of people on this block, you ain’t asking them for ID.'”
Following this exchange the police called for backup, and the group was soon surrounded. Sticman says he repeatedly asked if he was under arrest, was told that he was not, but wasn’t allowed to leave or continue his work. “I was harassed and attacked by the police in my neighborhood,” Sticman told the Voice. “I was never told anything about being under arrest…There were no complaints. I wasn’t violating any laws other than the law of being black and being outside.”
Soon after, a sergeant ordered arrests. “He basically says, ‘Arrest them all.’ They arrest four people. They don’t arrest all the folks out there,” says Kamau Karl Franklin, an attorney and dpz co-counsel. “Something I found interesting was that the photographer who actually was taking the pictures, who is a white guy from England, wasn’t arrested at all…He was just pushed to the side, and, luckily, he kept taking pictures.”
