Hip Hop Event Canceled By NYPD, Event Organizers Set to Protest on Scheduled Day

[Shinobi]

Hip Hop Event Canceled By NYPD, Event Organizers Set to Protest on Scheduled Day of Festival

***Protest on Saturday July 28th at the Rock Garden, 160th St. and Elton Ave in the South Bronx at 4PM***

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE- JULY 28, 2007

BRONX- What should have been a family-oriented Hip Hop festival at a community garden in the South Bronx will now be the site of a neighborhood protest, as residents voice concerns over an NYPD decision to deny event organizers the required permits.

The event sponsors: Las Peñitas del Bronx, Rebel Diaz, Proyecto Autogestion, Jardin la Roca, along with local and national hip hop artists scheduled to perform, claim they have received the bureaucratic run around by the NYPD this week. At a street confrontation on Friday in front of La Roca garden on 160th St. and Elton, 42nd precinct officials confirmed they were denying organizers a sound permit for the festival scheduled for Saturday afternoon. After being granted a sound permit for a similar event by the 40th precinct last month, event organizers today questioned the NYPD’s inconsistency and unwillingness to work out a compromise.

“We are trying to promote this community garden through Hip-Hop, and it has become painfully obvious that this is not about permits nor bureaucracy, but rather about criminalizing Hip-Hop, " says RodStarz of Rebel Diaz. This, in response to 42nd precinct officials declaring the festival a ‘Hip Hop Event’, which they claim “requires a specialized unit.” Event sponsors also claimed to have received calls from the NYPD requesting the names of the artists attending, as well as what ‘type’ of Hip Hop would be performed. Community residents yesterday braced for what is sure to be a spirited confrontation between protestors and police.

http://nyc.indymedia.org/or/2007/07/88830.html