Welcome back to my series called WHY WE NEED NYPD REFORM where I share all of the unnecessary, unwarrented, unexplainable behaviors of NYPD officers and how their lack of training and education leads to decisions that just don’t make sense. Todays episode takes place in 2018 I was driving my car in Staten Island and I was pulled over for texting. My phone was in a holder with directions on. The officer told me that I was texting and I showed him. My phone opened up all the apps and told him he w

Welcome back to my series called WHY WE NEED NYPD REFORM where I share all of the unnecessary, unwarrented, unexplainable behaviors of NYPD officers and how their lack of training and education leads to decisions that just don’t make sense. Todays episode takes place in 2018 I was driving my car in Staten Island and I was pulled over for texting. My phone was in a holder with directions on. The officer told me that I was texting and I showed him. My phone opened up all the apps and told him he was free to explore it. He still gave me a ticket anyway. He had asked for my license and registration. I gave him my license and my registration. He then told me he required my passport. As a First Nations Native American who falls under the Jay Treaty the native status card is used like a passport to cross through the boarder and gives me the right to live, work, retired on a business and all other rights as an American citizen. Also, I am an American citizen (I was born in Canada) but both parents are also American. I explained to him that I fall under the Jay treaty and he told me that I could explain that in court. He insisted that I need a passport to be in this country as if I wasn’t a citizen. I was detained for over an hour. When he came back to the car, he gave me a ticket for unlicensed driving. When I went to court, the case was immediately dismissed without question because my license was proven to be valid at the time of the pullover. This is a great example of how police abuse power, and how a lack of education on federal documents leads to issues for Native American and indigenous people. As a Native American woman being threatened to be arrested because I didn’t have the ID that he required even though I had federally acceptable ID is highly questionable. There needs to be better training for officers. And if they don’t know the law or they don’t know what an ID is they should call someone who has more knowledge or access to resources that can verify these things. Requiring people to go to court for frivolous tickets is unethical. Things like this are still happening @Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani you can change this! Let’s have some legal reform and law enforcement reform. The time is now! #lawenforcementreform #nativetiktok #nativeamerican #legalreform