NYPD and NYC City Hall Break Kids Hearts

[Generic Other]

www.parentsforoccupywallst.com

Parents for Occupy Wall St. March against police brutality. Children created 5,000 paper hearts one for every peaceful protestor arrested on behalf of the Occupy Wall Street movement in the three month period leading up to the march. The children delivered them to New York City Hall for Mayor Bloomberg only for the NYPD to aggressively tear them down and apart in front of the children. Children cried and the NYPD did yet another action against peaceful protestors. We as a country should not stand for this, get involved, speak up, do something for our children's futures.

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[EC]

1. I don't like what the cops did.

But what did the parents that had the kids do this think would happen? Didn't they think something like this would happen and set the kids up for a disappointment?

I don't know, I'm torn on this one...what the cops did was so incrediably cruel, yet I would have KNOWN there would have been something like this as an outcome. I would have expected them to just toss them, but to tear them in front of the kids was just so nasty.

[Generic Other]

2. Winning the hearts and minds of a new generation

The kids wanted to express solidarity with their parents. They have as much right as anyone to leave the country a message. Their teachers, schools, and parents are impacted by the government's treatment of its citizens.

The kids are the segment of our society most likely to live in poverty. What is the statistic on that? 13,000,000 kids living below the poverty line. They are as much the 99% as anyone.

<snip>
Nearly 13 million American children live in families with incomes below the federal poverty level, which is $20,000 a year for a family of four. The number of children living in poverty increased by more than 11 percent between 2000 and 2005. There are 1.3 million more children living in poverty today than in 2000, despite indications of economic recovery and growth.

Not only are these numbers dispiriting, the official poverty measure tells only part of the story—it is increasingly viewed as a flawed metric of economic hardship (see box). Research consistently shows that, on average, families need an income of about twice the federal poverty level to make ends meet. Children living in families with incomes below this level—for 2006, $40,000 for a family of four—are referred to as low income. Thirty-nine percent of the nation’s children—more than 28 million in 2005—live in low-income families.
<snip>

http://nccp.org/publications/pub_684.html

So how is it not their issue?

[Generic Other]

3. America's children

SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplements.

In 2009, 21 percent of all children ages 0–17 (15.5 million) lived in poverty. This is up from the low of 16 percent in 2000 and 2001. The poverty rate for all children increased from 18 percent in 2007 to 19 percent in 2008, and then to 21 percent in 2009. This trend is consistent with expectations related to the recent economic downturn.

Among all children, the poverty rate was three times higher for Black children and nearly three times higher for Hispanic children compared with the poverty rate for White, non-Hispanic children.2 In 2009, 36 percent of Black children, 33 percent of Hispanic children, and 12 percent of White, non-Hispanic children lived in poverty. These are increases from 35 percent, 29 percent, and 10 percent, respectively, in 2007.

As was the case for all children, the percentage of related children with family incomes below the poverty threshold was higher in 2009 (20 percent) than in 2008 (19 percent).36 The poverty rate for related children has fluctuated since the early 1980s, reaching a peak of 22 percent in 1993 and a low of 16 percent in 2000.

The poverty rate for related children living in female-householder families (no spouse present) was 44 percent in 2009, an increase from the low of 39 percent in 2001. The poverty rate for related children in married couple families increased from 8 percent to 11 percent over this time period.

Related children ages 0–5 were more likely to be living in families with incomes below the poverty line than those ages 6–17. In 2009, 24 percent of related children ages 0–5 lived in poverty, compared with 18 percent of older related children.

In 2009, 9 percent of related children lived in families with incomes below 50 percent of the poverty level, the highest estimate for related children since 1997.

http://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/eco1.asp

[EC]

4. Where does my post say it's not their issue?

Your whole post makes no sense in response to mine.


All I said is what was expected? I, for one would have expected the cops to toss the hearts because that has been their MO - to not care. Especially when the hearts represented something the cops did. Wouldn't you expect the cops to behave like brats caught at doing something bad? Wouldn't brats in that situation strike out and try to hurt the ones pointing out their bad behavior?

So I'm torn that these kids were set up for disappointment in this display to begin with. Maybe they should have sent the hearts to someone other than the cops?

[Generic Other]

5. Not meant to criticise you

Sorry. I was just trying to say it is their issue. That's all.

As for the cops, they could have waited until the end of the day after the kids were gone to tear down the hearts. That's how adults act.

[EC]

6. Yes, they could have.

and I would have expected them to do whatever they were going to do after the kids left. What they did was just cruel and vindictive. Like childish brats.