Zeta Parents Protest Precinct
Charter school parents are objecting to comments from NYPD officers.
In March, Lieutenant Michael Woloski spoke to a committee of Community Board 12 about the proposed Zeta Charter Schools building that would sit at 181st and Broadway. He speculated that the Zeta students who would attend the school would be from outside of the Heights, so they were "not going to take pride in this area and take care of it" and were "not going to clean up after themselves" or "respect the tenants."
Three other officers from the 34th Precinct spoke at community board meetings, including Commanding Officer Inspector John Portalatin, who suggested that “crime is going to go up, even if it’s not intentional. It might be the kids saw something of an opportunity,” or it could be someone harming an unaccompanied student on the way to school.
Zeta parents were upset. "It was unacceptable for them to speak like that about children," Jaime Nunez, a Zeta parent, told me. "It just proves how a lot of them have that underlying hatred towards people of color," said another parent, Oliver Rivera. Recently, Nunez helped start a petition demanding a response from the NYPD Commissioner. Almost 1300 people have signed so far.
A group of Zeta Charter Schools parents gathered outside the 34th Precinct on Tuesday morning to protest the comments that local police made about Zeta students. They held signs and spoke about their children’s experiences at Zeta.
I emailed Christopher Taveras, a community-affairs officer at the precinct who's also named in the petition, to ask for a response. "The precinct is aware of the petition, also how Zeta and their parents have perceived comments made," he wrote back. More meetings about the proposed school building are coming up, he added, "so at this moment we will not be commenting on the topic." Representatives of the local NYPD precinct have said the school would increase traffic in the area and pose safety risks.
One more piece of context: This isn't entirely a grassroots effort. An executive from Zeta's high-end press firm, SKDK, was at the protest helping coordinate media coverage. Zeta founder and CEO Emily Kim was also there. She didn't speak, but at one point she helped arrange the protestors to be better positioned for a TV camera.
