Chess Players harassed by police… again!
A controversy is brewing in New York after seven chess players were cited with trespassing tickets at a playground for children. The men were playing in Inwood Hill Park when they were approached by police officers who issued tickets (one for each player) for playing at the chess tables built at the park.
According to a report released yesterday at DNAinfo.com, the men were cited on October 20th for being inside of Emerson Playground, a children’s play area inside of the park. This area is off limits to adults unaccompanied by minors, perhaps an effort to prevent sexual predators. In this area there are tables with inlaid chess board separated from the play area by a fence. The authorities cite drug-dealing as the reason for the code, but the players were befuddled at the harassment.
“There is a problem in this area with drug dealing, but the police have time to write tickets to people playing chess?” asked Yacahudah Harrison, 48, who was one of the men cited. The men have to appear in criminal court for the offense of playing chess. People in the community expressed outrage at the citations saying that these men were upstanding citizens and were mentors of many children in the area.
Yacahudah “Y.A.” Harrison playing chess with a neighborhood child this summer on the table with a chessboard inlay inside Emerson Playground at Inwood Hill Park. (DNAinfo/Carla Zanoni)
This is not the first time chess players have been harassed. Years ago in Chicago’s Hyde Park, chess tables were removed after some of the business people complained about loitering. They also cited drug-dealing in the area. Earlier this year in San Francisco, chess players on Market Street were moved from the main district to a side street after having been at the locale for nearly 30 years.
Most of the men playing in these parks are typically of African descent. According to chess player Aggrey Duncan, another case in Newark, New Jersey during the early 90s saw 40 players banned from a park. He added that the same fate met players in Brooklyn.
Chess-players playing in the park on Eastern Parkway, between Washington and Classon, became the targets for continuous harassment and ticketing for being in the park after 6 p.m. This park known to many chess players as Mount Olympus, and which gave rise to GM Maurice Ashley, and was visited on many occasion by the Number one player of Italy, GM Fabiano Caruna, when he was a kid. This very park which saved a lot of minorities from roaming the streets, by being actively engaged in a positive mental exercise.
The players in Inwood Hill Park have made a makeshift table on top of a stone wall to play. Captain Jose Navarro stood by his officers’ actions. According to DNAinfo.com, Navarro stated, “Under my direction, uniformed officers routinely enter the parks to enforce closing times and other regulations; all designed to protect the community.”
Protecting the community from chess players? Could it have been more prudent to issue a verbal warning so that these issues could be addressed, or is this yet another attempt to harass men of a certain ethnicity and/or class? The irony in all this is that chess is an integral part of the fabric of New York.
With the added legend of Washington Square Park and the 24-hour chess shop in Greenwich Village, there has been a reverence for the game since Bobby Fischer walked the streets of New York. The recent policed harassment of the players in Inwood Hill is certainly a questionable decision given that the tables were put there for the purpose of people using them.
Using Inwood Hill Park Chess Tables“
The irony is that by being omnipresent, and “looking out” for their young proteges, the older chess players at the popular street locations actually help accomplish exactly what law enforcement desires … reduces the attractiveness of an area to criminal elements. Drug dealers aren’t going to want to be active near such a visible, festive activity, especially when you have parents, siblings, etc., constantly showing up for the youngsters.
Perhaps I am just unaware, but I’ve never seen in one of these articles where the chess players were ever accused of any real crimes – other than being somewhere playing chess.
Hell, if you think those Black New York chess players humanity were violated by the usual culprits, what about the life of Oscar Grant in Oakland in the hands of a murderous officer and whose case was under the jurisdiction of a corrupt biased judge? You know us chess players tend to recognize patterns.
Please, if they were Russian chess international champions they would have rolled out a red carpet for them to play at any of those locations including in a children’s playground area where adults there are unaccompanied by children are not allowed to go. I want to call BS so loud on this! As I am and elderly looking 50 something quite woman who is height weight proportionate and not only that but I am well built – I look like a Hollywood movie star okay? Or a Broadway star okay? And I have never ever even been looked at for walking into a children’s play area and I have never had children I never have children with me I have no children I have no grandchildren I go into the children’s play area in San Francisco because I’m homeless at this point and I like to fill my water bottle up there because it’s the closest water drinking fountain fill bottle station to where I park my car on the side of Golden Gate park. I literally am in that children’s play area every single day I bet I could loiter there all day long and no one would say a damn thing especially if I brought a book to read and my phone so it looks like I’m a well taken care of elderly/middle-aged lady. & Here’s another thing I can walk into almost any store and steal almost anything. Because I read steal this book by Abby Hoffman and I’m good at acting so I can pretend and have the body language of someone who has enough money to buy anything in the store. It also helps that I hung out with people like this when I was growing up. I grew up surrounded by upper middle class white America so there’s that. But yeah this makes me sick to my stomach I can’t believe this is the society that I live in and I’m so grateful that I didn’t have any children. This is a mess. This is a way bigger mess than I even ever imagined. I mean we are ticketing harmless people for playing chess!!!!!! Good luck everyone cuz if this is the state of things society is going to deconstruct much more quickly than anyone could ever even have suggested.