'Policing the Police', a Lecture with Robert Gangi

The Connie Hogarth Center for Social Change and the Black Student Union at Manhattanville College, in association with the New York Civil Liberties Union are co-sponsoring an important lecture by Robert Gangi, senior policy advocate for the Urban Justice Center and former executive director of the Correctional Association of New York.

The lecture, “Policing the Police: The Need for Police Reform Now” will be held Thursday, October 27, in the French Parlor, Reid Castle on the Manhattanville campus at 7 p.m.

Gangi will discuss police practices in the metropolitan area and why it is time for police reform. Topics will include police overstepping the law to apprehend and convict a suspect; physical abuse and practices such as “stop and frisk.”

“We at the Connie Hogarth Center for Social Change are deeply committed to issues of equal justice in all its faces,” Connie Hogarth said. “We expect this will be an extremely rich and valuable evening for students and community alike.  

A discussion and panel will follow the lecture with Officer Damon Jones, Executive Director, Westchester Blacks in Law Enforcement and Lieutenant Desmond Martin of the Greenburgh Police Department.

“This is resonates with our students on campus and the Black Student Union has taken the lead,” Hogarth said. “They had planned a program parallel with the lecture we are holding, and we all decided it was totally relevant and powerful to combine plans for a program focused on police practices.  And so, we have added the two key contacts from the Police Department to join in the discussion and questions.”

The annual lecture is held in memory of Henry Schwarzschild, a lifelong civil libertarian and an ardent advocate of civil rights.

The NYCLU is a leader in the movement bringing attention to the overuse of “stop an frisk” by police and has for years been fighting against its blanket use on people of color.